Cat Sense

By John Bradshaw.

Cat's and people have a very complex relationship. Human needs have shaped cat evolution, yet they are not yet fully domesticated.

The book goes into cat behavior in depth an history. It doesn't explain as much as I had hoped, but it is very honest. Sometime times the right answer is "I don't know that but think about this…"

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

Successful artists find a way to work. It maybe idiosyncratic, weird or unconventional, but they find a way to work every day. Everything else is colorful and interesting detail.

"Bargain Fever-- How to Shop in a Discounted World" ;

By Mark Ellwood.

This is not a manual of how to shop in a discounted world. It's more about the history, business and thought put into bargaining and sales-- coupons, discount sales, liquidations, sample sales. Non the less, it's interesting read. 

I didn't realize how much of a disadvantage I'm at when I go shopping. I may think I'm a great bargain hunter, but that "bargain hunter" experience is all thought out and well planned. I get to feel proud about negotiating a strong bargain. The company get's my money in a well controlled, well planned way.

Coupons are complicated. Retailers don't process coupons given to them by customers. The retailers send the coupons off to processing companies (Mostly staffed by illegal immigrants) who sort and remail the coupons to manufactures for redemption. The manufactures don't process the coupons. They hire another processing company (also staffed by immigrants) a deal with the redemption checks. Still other companies design and market the coupons.

There are a few structural problems with the book. I think the author wrote many essays about different aspects of bargaining and pricing, and then hastily edited them together. The context switches between and back to different topics can be confusing.

Still, a very interesting read.

Kon-Tiki

KonTiki is a movie about a team of people who sailed 5000 miles on a raft from Peru to a Polynesian island of Raroia. The leader, Thor Heyerdahl, wanted to prove that it was possible for Polynesia to have been settled by drifters from South America. So the raft was built with nothing more advanced than what South American's had 1500 years ago-- balsa wood logs roped together, plus a thatched hut.

I loved the movie. After we finished watching RO said "You're not allowed to do that."

I asked "Why not?"

He responded "You're not allowed to do that."

I would love to go on some kind of extreme expedition. I've thought about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, or the Appalachian trail. Maybe a long distance boat (or raft) trip instead.

Cell phones

I just renewed my vehicle tabs online from my cellphone. I was waiting for lunch, so I thought I'd try it out. The state licensing website is very good, optimized for cell phones. I'm surprised how easy it was.

This makes me more worried about the future of the PC. Cell phones may not have nice big screens, or great keyboards, but they are there in your pocket when you need them. PCs can't beat that. Over time, app and website authors will update there sites to work well on phones.

Will pcs go the way of the full sized van, or three quarter ton truck? Useful, but not in every ones home.

Egonomics

By David Marcum  & Steven Smith

I must read this one again in a year. It has a lot of good point and will take a rereading to get full value from it…

This book is about the ego, and it's affect on your life. Your ego must be in balance, too much and you go on the war path for every perceived slight. You don't look at the facts. Too little and you don't collaborate, participate.

Signs of unhealthy ego…

Being comparative, Comparing is healthy. Judging youself against the Jones' is not. Not everyone is your rival.

Being Defensive. Defending an idea is healthy. Defending and idea as a proxy for defending yourself is not.

Showcasing brilliance. Ideas should stand on there own, not be pushed forward because you are brilliant.

Seeking Acceptance. The truth is the truth, wither it is accepted or not.

Healthy ego…

Humility with intensity and intent

Curiosity

Veracity

The book talks about the concept of treating people with Unconditional Positive Regard-- the idea that everyone is worthy of respect and capable of contribution, even when they don't particularly act that way or feel that way about themselves. Stress on the "Unconditional." UPR is not about Positive Regard until someone proves they don't deserve it. UPR is Unconditional.

UPR reminds me of "Leadership and Self Deception." and treating someone outside the box. To me, UPR was a more clear statement of what "Leadership and Self Deception" is trying to communicate.

Channel Intensity from identity to ideas.

DPA-- Diffuse Physiological Arousal-- when someone accidentally pushes one of our buttons, and we feel we are under attack. This is very hard to avoid. As a speaker, you have to be aware that your speech and send someone into DPA. Use open statements. Focus on ideas.  As a listener you must be aware that you can be sent into DPA with an unintentional comment. The solution is to channel intensity from identity to ideas.

Don't be afraid of saying what you think (But avoid DPA)
Establish permission
Make your intent clear
be candid

 

Notes on Maui

We bought all our beach supplies from ABC-- snorkles, towels, umbrella, cooler pack. Tommy Bahama sells back-pack beach-chairs with a built in cooler. They also sell umbrella's. Next time consider buying this online and shipping it to the hotel.

The restaurant Cafe O'lei was wonderful.

Inside apple

Make responsibilities clear.

Have high standards.

Simplify.

The second world war..

By WC.
 
Until I read these books, I didn't realize little I knew about WW2 history.
 
WC's had an interesting view of the war; living through it, fighting it. The Holocaust was hidden from his view.  The Allies had an uneasy relationship with Russia. Enemies with Russia for the first half of the war. Then suddenly allies when Germany invaded Russia. Then opponents again when Russia used the chaos at the end of the WW2 to gobble up the eastern bloc countries. I didn't realize that the seeds of the cold war were sown in WW2.
 
Be decisive.
Never give up.
 

Influence without authority

This book reminds me that to effectively influence, you have to do the work of influence. How to win friends and influence people plus a lot of legwork. Also calls out more explicit strategies to deal with groups, committees and the like.

Closing the execution gap

One of those book that can be summed up by it's chapter titles…

1. Translate strategy into action
2. Expect top performance
3. Hold people accountable
4. involve the right people in making the right decisions
5. Facilitate change readiness
6. Increase coordination and cooperation
7. lessons for leaders…
1. Integrate the leader and manager roles
2. Clarify assumptions and priorities
3. Make sure the right systems are in place
4. Coordinate and monitor high impact actions
5. Get change management right
   

The splendid table's how to eat weekends...

Great inspiration for the kitchen. I wish it focused more on technique than recipes.

Existentialism

From Dostoevsky to Sartre.

I had to put this book down. I saw that Hunter S Thompson recommended it, almost as a guide for life. Maybe I should take advice from people who live drug and alcohol soaked lives, no matter how interesting they are.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Pointing out the intellectual laziness of perfectionism doesn't mean that we will become intellectually active. Perfectionism has a strong advantage-- you have a standard and a high one at that. We can be lazy and just muddle along. We can be overwhelmed and incapable of engaging on every issue. Problems fall out of sight and out of mind. In these situations, you don't have a standard, you have no standard and no standard can be worse than perfectionism. Perfectionism is easier to correct than laziness. When you are a perfectionist you are doing something that can be observed, measured, tweaked, reviewed, changed, matured. But laziness?
 
 

More on Managing for results

Drucker has a pretty harsh view on how long and hard you should try to solve problems…

"Under no circumstances should there be more than one repair operation on a repair job (Product that is struggling) If the repair does not work the first time, the plea "now we know what's really wrong here" should be most unsympathetically received. A repair job is bad enough, but an investment in managerial ego is worse. Yet this is what a second chance for a repair job will produce in the majority of cases."

He also says else where that the way a business earns money should be obvious and clear, though I can't find the direct quote.

I think that we delude our selves far more often than we deal with reality. 9 out of 10 new business fail. Your idea may stink no matter how strongly you disagree. Sure you should work hard to make it happen and to solve problems. But, and some point you are not facing reality, or are two wound up in the idea to admit failure and then move on.

Perfection

Perfection is lazy thinking. You don't have to work through what you actually need, and what your system can actually provide. You just set a standard that's very high, probably unnecessarily high. No one can ever fault you for not having high enough standards. You just pretend that you can overcome every obstacle along the way. The result of chasing perfection is a moral high ground that turns into a mess when reality hits and you learn the hard way what compromises have to be made, what resources you actually need, and what skills it would take to do a proper job.

It's not your fault of course, after all, you were only trying to be perfect.

Managing for results

There is a lot in this book. I need to read it again.

1. Focus on your opportunities, not your problems.
2. Your business is to create customers.
3. Your customers are the people who decide to buy, not the people who think want to use your product.
4. Your customers want satisfaction. Your product is only a means to that ends.
5.   distribution is as important as manufacturing.

Reread. The book is very dense.

Eat, drink and be healthy

Very common sense and based on good research.

1. Avoid saturated fat. Don't be afraid of unsaturated fat.
2. Eat plenty of vegetables.
3. eat whole grains
4. Stay away from refined starches, sugars and potatoes.
5. Beef has saturated fat, bird less so, fish is unsaturated.
6. Exercise 30 minutes a day
7. Sleep 8 hours a day.
8. Limit alcohol to 1 or 2 drinks a day.
9. Watch your weight.

TB on rhetoric...

The old saying is that "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," which as a long rhetorical thorn was irresistible to me as a young person.  I recognize it now for its myopia and its cowardice.  That's not to say that any writer can write about music; it is entirely possible, and statistically likely, to fail.  But somebody's gonna fucking dance about architecture one of these days, they will, and my greatest fear that I won't recognize it when it happens.

Winston...

Memory can be true, but always check the records.

This will make you smarter

short smart essays by many people on ideas they think will make you smarter.

The collection does deliver as promised, unfortunately there are so many essays on such a diverse range of topics that it's difficult to remember them all. Most of them are popular cognitive biases, aspects of scientific method. I'll remember some of the ideas…

Correlation is not Causation… Example… People who believe in astrology live longer than people who don't. This has nothing to do with astrology. Women believe more often than men in astrology, and women live longer than men.

So many other ideas-- play- pursue generative ideas. Ideas must be testable.

If I could remember it all, I would be smarter. There are so many ideas on the book though, that the flow right through me.

Sent from Windows Mail

The Half-Life of Facts

Why everything we know has an expiration date. By Samuel Arbesman.

As if to confirm (or perhaps to inform) my current writing, along comes "The Half-Life of Facts"

The book goes so far to say that in any field, half of all the facts will be obsolete, outdated or wrong on a very predictable time table. It goes into the causes and consequences of this.

It argues that there re degrees of truth. Or perhaps that some truths are more useful than others.  Both flat-earth believes and Earth-is-round-but-the-center-of-the-universe believers are wrong, but not in the same way. Also, the truth that each person believed was good enough for the time. At the time of the flat-earth, we didn't have to pilot jets around the globe, or much data about the orbits of the earth around the stars.

Going forward, much of what we know, will be outdated, obsolete or wrong in time.

Progress is made by finding which ideas are wrong and replacing these wrongs with better ideas. Ideas then must be testable. Truth must not be clung to.

Memory #3...

But clearly I'm not always a toddler. I do accomplish things. I manage to tie my shoes. I lead a team of people at work. I cook decently. I exercise. I pay bills. This appears to be true of the world at large. This is not some sort of cognitive illusion.
 
So what are my skills then? How can I leverage these skills? How can I manage my weaknesses?
 
I can rely on the things I know now. Not the things I did in the past. I can rely on the choices I can make right now. Not on the choices I made in the past.  

Winston #2

When you have a good thing going, always stick with it. This is true for politics and war.

On the poorly prepared defences leading to the fall of Singapore.

It never occures to me that this could happen. I was never informed, and I never asked. I should have asked.

Memory #2

My first memories are when I was 4, or maybe 3. I don't know. This experience isn't uncommon. Who really remembers being a toddler?

We think that we start remember things after we are 4, but really how true is this? My 30's consisted of over 3650 days. I commuted to work over 2000 times. Ate over 10000 meals. Yet if I remembered 100 of those days, my memory would be considered excellent. That means the vast majority of those days are lost even to someone with an excellent memory.

Is it because I remember a day here and their while I was in my 30's that I think I remember my 30's. It's seems to be true that my 30's are as lost as my toddler years.  It's a mental quirk that makes me think otherwise. I remember a day here and there throughout my 30's, so I conclude that I remember my 30's. What's really happened is that I've forgotton that I've forgot. With no details to make me confront this absence, I conveniently don't realize it exists.  

When I was young, I knew I didn't know much. That was OK since I was learning. Eventually I would learn every thing.

Then, in high school, and university, I knew I could learn the things I studied. I accepted that I Would be ignorant of the things I didn't study. There just wasn't enough time.

But, as time went on, I saw that even on the subjects I study, there were deep mysteries. Hard work and deep research reveals that there is so much more to learn than you can ever be exposed to.

Then I started to realize  that so much of what I knew, so much of what I had put so much effort into learning wasn't aging well. So many facts were outdated. Some of what I learnt was wrong. Much was misremembered, and lots was forgotten.

I could read some books and have a vague feeling that I've read that book before, yet not know how the book ended. Sure enough, if I looked over my reading history, I had read that book before and forgot it completely.

But the more I think about this, the less I feel that I am becoming frail, weak and forgetful with old age. This ignorance maybe the way of life for everyone, and I'm only now realizing it.

When you are young and you forget to do an assignment, or bring chips to the party it's not a big deal and you brush it off. When you are middle aged and you forget, then doubt creeps in and you think you are loosing your mind. This scares many people. I can't go there. Doubt and anxiety do not make things better. I have to face the world as it is, with the strengths that I have. Weather or not my mind is getting weaker, or stronger.

Sent from Windows Mail

Making Things Happen

written by a former Microsoft employee, so this book describes a lot of the process of my job, and the reasoning behind it.

From reading this book, one thing occurs to me. I don't hold my team to a consistently high standard. When times are tough, yes. But I let things drift when things are easier. Perhaps I need to hold them to a different standard when times are easier-- push for more innovation, more research, more experimentation, more collaboration.

It's too easy to manage in an emergency.

Results based leadership

-- a lot of smart things that good leaders do regularly

This book explores leadership in terms of results. Leaders get results. They have qualities or skill used to achieve results.

The book explores defining results. How management often gets what they reward for.

Employee results.

Organizational Results

Customer Results

investor Results

Becoming a results based leader

1. Begin with an absolute focus on results
2. Take complete and personal responsibility for your group's results
3. Clearly and specifically communicate expectations and targets
4. Determine what you personally need to do to improve your results
5. Use results as a litmus test for continuing or implementing a leadership practice
6. Engage in development activities and opportunities that will help you produce better results.
7. Know and use every group member's capabilities to the fullest. Provide them with appropriate development opportunities
8. Experiment and innovate in every realm under your influence. Look for new ways to improve performance
9. Measure the right standards and increase rigor with which you measure them.
10. Constantly take action. Results won't improve without it.
11. Increase the pace or tempo of your group.
12. Seek feedback from others in the organization about the ways you and your group can improve your outcomes
13. Ensure that your subordinates and colleagues perceive that your motivation for being a leader is the achievement of positive results, not personal or political gain
14. Model the methods and strive for the results you want your group to use and attain.

Crucial Conversations.

Tools for talking when the stakes are high.

In this book, Crucial conversations are conversations that occur when people have different opinions, stakes are high, and emotions are strong.

One of my frustrations with this book is that I often to have an opinion. Somone is trying to discusses something very important with me, and I just don't care. The lessons of this book still apply, you just have to work a little more.

1. Establish and play attention to safety. Conversations go wrong when the person you are talking to no longer feels safe.
1. Establish Mutual Respect.
2. Establish Mutual Purpose.
2. Pay attention to the story you are telling. Is it consistent with your values? With the mutual values and meaning that you are creating with the person you are talking to?
3. Listen to other people, and there stories. Remember to keep mutual respect and purpose.
4. Use contrasting when describing a difficult situation. Contrasting is a do/don't statement. "I mean X, Not Y"
5. Start with the Facts
6. Notice your behavior in the conversation. Notice that of the person you are talking with
7. ABC. Agree. Build. Compare
8. Move to Action-- Decide how to Decide-- Conesus? Single person decision? Vote?

Winston..

W.C. always made orders and directives in writing. He never want anyone to say "W.C. said that we should... Or, W.C. told us to..." He wanted his orders to be clear, not  matter of rumor.
 
Always have a strategic reserve. Things go wrong. If you don't have a reserve then you slam into the wall.

Confidence

By Rosabeth Moss Kanter

I skimmed this book. It's not a bad book. It's just that it's one of those books that contains more case studies than conclusions. I kept thinking more of the case studies would have a twist... the winning stream broke by losers with a fresh new approach. But no. For all the sports competition stories in the book, the winning and loosing is at a higher level-- personal accountability, training and effort.

if you look at this book right, it can be mapped to "The 8th Habit" …. "Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs." "Make and keep promises" and the rest of the 7 habits.

I see now that the 7 habits is weak in "Group habits." It's wonderful guidance for people, but it's not targeted at people who coach, mentor and lead.

The work of leaders…

Espouse: The power of message.

Exemplify: The power of models

Establish: The power of formal mechanisms.

Individual and System Accountability.

Fostering Straight talk

Communicating Expectations Clearly

Making Information Transparent and accessible

Mutual respect.

Structuring Collaborative conversations

reinforcing respect and inclusion

Defining joint goals and collective definitions of success.

Initiative, Imagination and Innovaction

Opening Channels for new ideas

Treading people as experts in there own work

Encouraging small wins and grassroots innovations

External Confidence, ensuring stakeholder and public trust.

 

The second world war - alone

What can I possibly say about Winston Churchill's history of Ww2? Its writing worth remembering.

On the great depression-- easy credit meant that too many people with too little income could spend their money frivolously in stuff they couldn't afford.

Before ww2, Great Britain and France appeased Germany in a hope of building peace rather then dealing with Germany's treaty transgressions.

The Day The Universe Changed

By James Burke

I'm kind of jealous of the way Burke can mix fun historical trivia with deep philosophical meaning. At times though, you can loose site of the deep significance of what he's getting at. It can come across as a "Gee Wiz! Look at all these cool innovations!"

What do I want to remember?

That science only looks for what it expects to find.  (That people only look for what the expected to find?) This is a deep circular problem. Sure, sometimes reality laps us in the face with the evidence, But much of the time it's true nature is deep and indirect and we must build special tools to observe it. All we really know then is what our tools find. The model we build up is all in our mind. As the models in our mind change, as what we expect to find changes, as the tools we build to measure reality changes, so will science change. Always stumbling towards the truth, never quite find it. Contrast this with Christianity or Buddhism which, to its believers, has adequately explained the universe for thousands of years.

Trail running

I've started trail running. I didn't plan on trail running. I've never really wanted to trail run. I just started doing it.

For hears I've gone for a weekly hike on cougar mountain. Cougar mountain has many trail runners on it, many of whom are in far better condition than I. One time when I was walking up a steep hill, panting, four women ran by me. They were talking to each other! Not panting. Talking like the hill was nothing.

Last year work started paying for a gym membership. I started going regularly. I started doing cardio two or three times a week.

Then, last weekend, while I was finishing off on a tread mill, it occurred to me that a tread mill was boring and that I could probably trail run without walking too much.

So I tried it out. It went well. I got good trail running shoes. I've been pushing my self a bit more each time.

Modern Life

High quality recording and reproduction are damping the need for repeatable technique, and boosting the need for creation, analysis and insight.

Occupy DC

From time to time, my phone stumbles on OccupyDC wireless networks. What does it mean that a low tech, grass routes movement has a wireless infrastructure.

DC

I'm in Washington DC for a week. It's a wonderful city. So much to see. I will come back.

 

I'm reminded how new the places I've lived are. Here the history is real and thick. Many buildings are very old. The museums have much art from centuries gone by. Of course the National Archive has the original U.S. Constitution.

 

I've been to the Lincoln memorial three times. It's always crowded, late at night, early in the morning. Hundreds of people climb the steps.

 

Green paint was sprayed on Lincoln while I was here. News says the vandal was a mentally ill homeless woman.

 

Lincoln's great speeches are on the side of the memorial.  People walk right up to the statue of Lincoln and take many photos of him.  But people stay away from the speeches and take fewer photos.  We joked that this is because Americans are ignorant of lincoln's words.  I think the reality is that pictures of the words just aren't that photographic.  Especially when compared to the statue of Lincoln.

 

I wanted to meditate at the memorial.  I've read so much about its profound effects on people.  But the memorial is crowded and loud.  Not the place where one can sit and think.

 

At the national gallery of art there are many wonderful paintings.  I want to gush here.

 

C2 is here.  He is back from Afghanistan and now working in Washington.  He may be dating someone.  If it doesn't work out he said he will head off to Syria.

 

 

 

 

Decisive

By Chip & Dan Heath.
 
I'm usually irritated when I've read a substantial portion of a book before in a different form. Not in the case. In this book, the Heath's proudly claim to base their research on books such as "Thinking Fast and Slow" "Predictably Irrational" and the like. What makes this book worth the time is that the Heath's turn all this decision research into an actionable process...
 
When making a decision...

1. Widen your options.
2. Reality-test your assumptions.
3. Attain distance before deciding.
4. Prepare to be wrong.

 
 
 
 

2nd insight...

My second insight gained from meditation... I spend a lot of time not solving the most important problems in my life. I spend much time entertaining myself, goofing off, drinking, or even meditating. I use this as an excuse to not engage on important problems.

Question... Passion v.s. priority. If there is an important problem in my life, but the solution requires work I'm not excited about, how do I engage on the problem?

The Happiness Hypothesis

By Jonathan Haidt.

 

A good summary of the current state of positive psychology. It covers the research around the ways we find happiness and meaning in our lives. It struggles a little through the chapter on happiness from religion, but is still worth the read.

 

What do I want to remember from this book...

 

Stoicism and Buddhism are good pathways to happiness, but need to be updated for modern times. stoicism and Buddhism were most relevant when rulers, disease and other mishaps could and did regularly wipe out your family and fortune. In the modern world, things are more stable, we can make longer term plans, we can take greater risks to make us more happy.

 

There is a theory that our greatest leanings are from struggles, that unless we regularly face adversity, we don't grow.  

Haidt also covers a centuries long trend that's switching the discussion of ethics morality from virtues and values, to conundrums. philosophy in the distant pass used to debate the virtue of hard work, or excellence, or honesty. Now it considers cases like "Is it OK to murder 1 person if you will save 10?" "Is it OK to keep the lost wallet of a man you know to be a thief?"

I think both perspectives are necessary. We have to anchor our actions on solid values, but cannot allow those values to become an excuse as to prevent us from solving important problems. From time to time our values will raise conundrums that must be dealt with.

 

 

Ultimate treehouses

Most tree houses are houses on stilts built around a tree. That's boring. Thus book has a few good ideas. Its more of a picture book than a technical how to.

How Proust can change your life.

I'm reminded of the psychologists joke, "That all research is me-search" Proust went well beyond that. He believed that when we read, we take in what we want to take in. We see what we want to see. Of course all research is me-search. Most everything we do is self serving.

 

Proust wanted us to open our eyes, to see beauty in simple things and rich things, but mostly to open our eyes to see beauty where it exists. that the judgment of what is beautiful exists separate from other judgments.

 

.... To no rely on idols, to think for ourselves.

 

... to pay attention

 

Perhaps this is just what I want to see in Proust.

 

The most powerful Idea in the World

... the patent system adds the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.

 

This book is the story of the steam engine, the industrial revolution, and how the patents system fueled that.

 

I'm amazed how little the system around the patented inventions has changed in 200 years. When the steam engine was being invented, there were patent trolls, people stealing ideas without paying for them, people working around patents, the list goes on. Replace "steam engine" with any modern technology, and those stories could be told again today.

 

 

Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease

by Robert Lustig.

Stay away from sugar, processed food, and too much saturated animal fat. Unsaturated fat, especially those high in omega 3's are fine. Eat foods with much fiber and macro nutrients (raw vegetables and whole fruits) Eat quality proteins.

Everything else in this book discusses why the above is a good idea, how all successful diets are some variety of the above and how to achieve the above in your diet.

How to Think More About Sex

by Alain de Botton

If there is one thing to take away from this book, it's that normal sexuality really isn't easy or common. It's the result of a much work, and that by implication, normal long term relationships aren't easy or common, they are the result of years of effort.

Zoo

Zoo is a documentary far better than it aught to have been.

A few years ago in a village near Seattle, a man was fatally injured while having sex with a horse. After the investigation it turned out this wasn't a freak incident. The man was on a farm where people who wanted to have sex with animals could do so.

The documentary then is about the death, the people and events leading up to the death, and it's aftermath. This subject matter is great stuff for a hyperbolic media circus.

But that's not how the documentary is. It tells the story with understanding, sympathy even. While the documentary is not pro-bestiality, it does try to help someone understand why someone would be attracted to animals. And that's a little creepy.

The Riemann Hypothesis: Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics.

This book tells the story of people who haven't solved a problem. They've tried many ways to solve the problem. They've leant much on the way. But, they still haven't solved the problem.

 

Interesting questions along the way.

 

Are there truth's that we can't prove? Or proofs that are too complex for us to understand?

 

When you work on a problem like this, the work must inevitably be collaborative, yet the person who ultimately proves the Riemann Hypotheses will get a lot of credit. Is that fare? Is that right?

 

i'm going through my old math texts trying to understand what the Riemann Hypotheses actually is. I remember being exposed to it in University, but it's importance and relevance never stuck out. I'd like to understand at least what it means.

 

 

How to Live

-or A Life Of Montaigne

 

I first heard about Montaigne from "The Consolations of Philosophy" Montaigne appeared to have a practical philosophy that acknowledged human frailty.  I didn't set out to read Montaigne's essays though. I stumbled on this book going over my libraries list of recommended books from years gone by.

 

Montaigne was a nobel in France who lived in the latter half of the 1500's His lived through the protestant revolution, the black plague and the French civil wars. How didn't realize how convoluted these events were until I read this biography. Religion and politics were far more combined than they where even today. Protestantism was treason. England was supporting Protestants in Catholic France. Into this, the black plague was killing thousands of people convincing people that the end-times where near.

 

In this time Montaigne wrote his essays.

 

I'm not sure what I want to remember from this book, other than to read his essays, though this decision is now hard as Montaigne never stopped writing and rewriting his essays. On top of that there are different translations with different intent. I'll pick on and see.

10/10/2014. I've listened to the audio book a second time now, and have found a decent translation of the Essays. The public domain editions are difficult reading as they are old French translated into old English. Better to pay a few bucks and get a modern translation. I have Screech's translation.

This time around I got more out of "How to Live..." Maybe it's that life involves actually paying attention to the people and things right in front of you and not treating them as abstractions or after thoughts. Life is it's own meaning.

"All human endeavors are eventually muddled with human error."

"Life should be an aim until itself; a purpose until itself."

"Enlightenment is something learned on your own body. It takes the form of things that happen to you."

"(In your interactions) you are looking at a creature who is looking back at you. No abstract principles are involved. Only two individuals, face to face, hoping from the best from one another."








 

Choke

by Sian Beilock

 

 

It's a good book. Unfortunately, much of the material is covered in Outliers & The Emotional Life of Your Brain. Still, it draws it's own unique conclusions.

Doing Capitalism In the Innovation Economy

by William H. Janeway

 

I had a very hard time focusing on this bug. Not that it's a bad book. It's very dense. Janeway is a very smart man who has been through some amazing times. Unfortunatly, this book is more like a text book than any thing else.

 

For my own good, I probably want to go back and reread this sometime. For right now, I want to remember... that Janeway faults many companies for spending too much time and money developing technology, and not enough finding customers with problems they are willing to spend  money to solve.

 

My father is farmer. When I told him about our sick cat, of course he had a very simple solution-- a shovel. He is strongly against spending hundreds of dollars on an animal that will die in a few years anyways. Let the end of her life come quick and painlessly. Don't drag it out.

 

The cat isn't getting better or worse. She just sits there. She tolerates the force feedings. Then she stares out to the road. Sometimes she responds when we pet here. But mostly she ignores us.

 

Vet says the cat is anemic and probably has either kidney failure, cancer or a virus. We'll get the results of the blood test in a day or two. Till then, she's on an apatite increaser, antibiotics and I'm syringe feeding her a special cat food.

 

 

Animal Spirits

I also finished animal spirits today.  It's a good complement to the rational optimist.  Not that the rational optimist is wrong, but that it doesn't cover the failings and limits of capitalism.  Yes people choose rationally, but they only choose rationally about things they think about.  Many choices in our life are not thought through.

Animal spirits then covers the gap between rational thought and emotional experience and how it affects the economy.  It argues that we must be wary of snake oil and market conditions that allow for runaway economy not a healthy growing economy.  Snake oil can be very attractive in many circumstances you may not realize you've bought snake oil until years of gone by.  Take the housing bubble for example.  It was years before that correction happened.  Too many people had had no incentive to think rationally about what they were doing.  They were paid to sell house after house, issue mortgage after mortgage, and pass the risk on to someone else.

 

It's too bad that animal spirits isn't as fun of a read as the rational optimist.  The rational optimist has a certain exuberance to it.

 

 

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley

This book is almost panglosian in its optimism. The book argues well that thanks to trade, fair capitalism really, that life on earth is getting better and better.

 

The book raises some good points-- the future is not a projection of the past. Innovation is accelerating and has been for centuries. That many problems of the past, acid rain, dwindling oil and other resources, limited food production, many diseases, were tackled head on by powering through them, not by cowering, and backing off, thus preventing them from happening. Let people do what they want. They have to decide what's best for them, not me.

 

Restricting trade causes more problems than it solves. The people involved in the restricted trade have less time, and money to engage on other problems. This causes other man made problems, rather than allowing people to engage on actual problems.

 

The optimism turns me off a little bit. I'm reminded of the investment advice "The market be wrong longer than you can stay solvent." For the world then, in general, in aggregate, in the long run, things are getting better. But my life is not a general aggregate long run. It's specific to me. Things can go wrong. I must be ready for it.

 

But don't panic. Deal with the problems.

 

why can I play a simple mindless game for hours, but when I have to fill out a form, I keep putting the task off for weeks. Is a catchy tune and achievements all that we need to unleash the next wave of human productivity?  

Night of the iguana.

 

 

The actual night of the iguana was very interesting.  The days before the night of the iguana were so so. Many great films are like this. The last 3rd is awesome, the first two thirds are prep and background.

 

The film is about people who repress them selves, and how this slowly drives them crazy.

 

I was surprised by how progressive the film is.  Lesbianism, chasing underage women and men, bondage, fetishism are all eluded to in the film.  I think that the allusions are more effective than actual demonstrations.  With an allusion when a hint finally clues you in, you're mind races back and combs over the movie for hints you missed. With an actual display of lesbianism, the surprise wouldn't be so deep.

 

 

 

 

Resolve and Fortitude

By Joachim Kempin.

 

This is the story of VP of Microsoft's OEM division at the time of the DOJ trial. It's an interesting look into what happened.

 

It's hard to say how the DOJ trial could have been avoided. Given the circumstances, I'm sure the same decisions would have been made over again. Microsoft didn't plan on becoming a monopoly. it happened through an accumulation of smart decisions, competitive responses and a competitive attitude that exists even today.

 

I kind of like Kempin's occasional thoughts on management. He observes how the 'freedom' pendulum swings. One year, management is empowering employees to take initiative and to lead them selves. The next year management realizes this results in dozens of different standards and directions, and that management must do more to unify and guide the employees.

 

Perhaps the lesson is that empowered employees are not an excuse to economize on management. 

 

Grey Gardens

I watched this movie feeling a little ill. If my life got hard, if I gave up, then this would be my fate.

 

Big and little Eddie Bouvier, a 75 year old mother and her 56 year old daughter live in a decaying mansion on the ocean. Years ago they were on their way up. The mother was a successful singer. The daughter a model. The, the mother rejected her daughters suitors, and the daughter moved home to take care of the mother. Twenty years later, it's like they are stuck. Still bickering about men, and their near fame. The mansion and surrounding Grey Gardens are falling apart, overwhelmed by trees, raccoons and cats.

 

 

The structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas s. Kuhn.

 

Let's see. What do I want to remember.

 

The books talks about the different between knowledge and tacit knowledge.  knowledge is when I learn something. Tacit Knowledge is when I learn how to map the knowledge to unfamiliar situations. So, call it the difference between book learning and wisdom or street smarts. Kuhn suggests that when we learning anything new, we always go through stages of "ignorance" (I don't know) to "learned knowledge" (I know the facts, but can't apply them to novel situations) to "tacit knowledge" (I can solve new problems by mapping them back to things I once learnt)

 

That history is written by the victors and it's impact on now we see the past. The victors (and their related authors) are not interested in discussing the doubt and uncertainty that lead up to there conclusions. They want to present their points so that readers can understand them. So when you look back over historical texts, and modern text books, you get an overly linear view of scientific progress.

 

The science is unique in its view of progress. In science, your ideas must encompass all past ideas, plus you must add your own. In art, any idea that encompasses all past ideas would be taken as derivative.

 

Scientific paradigm shifts are not clean an easy. Sometimes the new and better shifts take decades to take root. People hated Newton's ideas because it didn't explain why gravity existed. Also, the instruments at the time were very erratic. Newton's laws didn't explain the data that much better than the old.

 

New scientist adopt the new theories because they are more useful than the old. Old scientists die off.  Sometimes there will be a definitive test that proves the new theory correct, and the old wrong. This is the exception. Most new theories are just slightly better than the old theories they replaced.

 

the discovery of oxygen is a good example. The old, wrong, theory, had a simple, clean explanation for why fire needed air to burn.  The idea that air contained oxygen, nitrogen, CO2 and other gases each with there own properties, sounds like you are making things up to explain your observations. It took a long time for the theory of oxygen to take over.

 

 

 

 

To be fruitful and grow, you must welcome manure-- Nietzsche

 

 

The art of living lies in finding uses for our difficulties. Montaingne

 

 

The signal and the noise.

This is an interesting book on predicting, why some predictions succeed, and why most fail.  The research in it is fascinating, but the conclusions are little bit of a bummer.  That we will never be able to predict well, thought we can forecast, and contingency plann.  The author encourages us to think baysien about predictions, with false positives and false negatives.

nate silver was a professional poker player for a couple of years.  His insights on beating poker are in those veins.  He observes that if everyone had a poker table is good then no one is getting rich.  The winnings are distributed randomly. the players are just passing money amongst each other.  To win at poker you need to have a loser at the table.

Spotting the losers is hard work.  It's not just a guy who's winning the most often.  That could be a good player who's having a run of bad luck.

 

When the U.S. tightened up the laws about online poker playing, poker got much harder, as most of the losers stopped playing online poker. With fewer experienced losers online, fewer experienced losers headed out to the casino.

This also relates to the paritio principle, that 20% of your efforts bring 80% of the results.  If you were at a table where everyone had their basics down, then you have to put in an order of magnitude more effort in to get to the next level.  If everyone is doing that, then you have a lot of work ahead of you.  Such is the nature of highly competitive play. For every step ahead of your competition, you have to put in an order of magnitude more effort. Not a little more effort, cause anyone can do that, but a lot more effort.

Rather than predicting the author encourages us to model for insight and for contingency planning.  He also observes that when things go wrong it's because of the things we didn't expect.  We confuse unfamiliar with improbable.  He puts 911 in that category.  Suicide pilots flying planes into buildings were unfamiliar so the idea was dismissed as improbable.

 

 

What do you do when you dream a great rock anthem, and really want to write down the song of your dreams, yet you have no musical ability at all?

 

I'm going to get back

Get back

Get up and go

Get on the road

 

ok, maybe its not that good.

Just My Type

Fonts and type have always interested me. They are in a realm where nerdiness meets artistry. It can be so easy to presume no one should care about the difference between Helvetica and Arial, or maybe even Times Roman. What difference does it make if the text is legible? Yet people will throw themselves on swords over the finer points of fonts.

 

It's probably no coincidence that in 2008, John McCain's campaign font was Optima, the same fonts used in the Vietnam Veteran's memorial. Obama's font was Gotham, a font designed for GQ magazine. I think that hints at the power of smart design. Mostly it out of the way, only presenting you with what the designer intended. Sometimes it sneaks in a subtle message. Something you are not aware is there, but that affects you none the less.

So much of this comes down to taste... a taste that I do not have, or cannot express. I can say that a font is lighter or darker, or easy to read, or more curvey, but I couldn't tell you what an elegant font was, or minimalist, or original, or arresting, or harmonized. Yet font designers can talk this way for hours.

And why are so many people with poor taste drawn to Papyrus and Comic Sans?

"When you break the rules, break them elegantly, definitively and well. Everything else is bad taste"
"When the going get's easy, it means you're getting lazy."
 

le Quattro volte

For an art film with no dialog, this film is very watchable. Little scenes of almost no significance slowly add up to express a larger story? event? It's hard to say. A real story isn't told, but I felt flashes of recognition all through the film as the various events aligned.

The film is surprisingly emotional. After dozens of slows shots of a goat herder leaving his home, his death is implied by a long shot of the herder's home, and the herder's dog barking at anyone who goes by.

I would love to see a long form narrative told like this.

 

The immortal life of Henrietta lacks

 

The immortal life of Henrietta lacks.

 

Henrietta had a cancer.  But not any kind of cancer.  The cells from this cancer could be cultured indefinitely in a Petri dish.  Her cells were the first cells that could live outside the human body for more than a few days.

 

Her cells have been used in a wide variety of medical research.  Testing the polio vaccine.  Much cancer research.  First human cells into outer space.  Exposed to radiation.  The list goes on.

 

There are many complicated issues associated with her cells.  Henrietta was never informed that her biopsy would be used for research.  Her family was never compensated for their use.  Lawsuits have since clarified this.  When you have your blood drawn, the Dr. is free to send samples of that blood off for research.  If your blood can cure cancer, you have no right to be informed or compensated.  This is established case law.

 

Of course the reality is most cells won't cure cancer.  We will only find cells that help after looking over all the cells that don't.  That process takes an incredible amount of resources. If you want to be compensated for cells that cure cancer, then who should pay for the cells that don't?

 

 

The book also discusses the divide between science and the reality most people experience.  Science depends on collaboration and a bit of trust between strangers.  Many people however deeply mistrust other strangers and rightfully so.  So when a scientist needs the trust of a mistrusting family, things get complicated.  The scientists have problems understanding why the family won't trust them. The family will assume that they're being taken advantage of. Conflict
ensues.

How do we know when to trust an authority? Especially when he is an authority on something we have no experience with? Is he really an authority or is he trying to con me with stories I can't understand?

The Turin Horse

 

The Turin horse.

 

This is a film and not a movie.  It's almost painful to watch.  Tedious, depressing but beautiful.  The movie is about a father and daughter who lived a difficult life.  They work hard.  They subsist on potatoes.  Every day is tedious.  And then things get worse.  Their horse refuses to work.  Their well runs dry. The wind outside refuses to end. Then they die.

 

In an interview the director said this was the last film of his career and that he wanted to end it with a meditation on the heaviness of life. When you are young, you take on the world and all its problems. As you grown older, you see there is no end to the problems. Finally in your old age you realize that life is heavy, and you must make peace with it.

 

 

I've been trying to meditate regularly.  No special meditation.  Not Buddhist or transcendental or Hindu or Christian, just me sitting still and not thinking.

 

It's surprising just how often random thoughts pop into my head. I enjoy the quiet. 

 

 I've had one moment of insight.  It's a little goofy but I'm going to record it for posterity.  I was sitting on a bench listening to the waterfalls looking at the fog and clouds while a light rain fell.  It occurred to me that the water, the rain and the fog didn't know that they were different.  The all just existed.  Their difference was in my perception of them.

 

When I meditate it's for 20 minutes.  Long enough to be a commitment but not too long.  I wonder if meditation is selfish or if it encourages me to focus. It is a good way to focus and to become aware just how often my mind runs off on a tangent.

Carrie Brownstein on performing...

 

Also, the performance kind of gives you license to go places that are darker, more dangerous, more contradictory. And I think that's a consistent theme in both music and "Portlandia" in the ways that you're kind of given license to go off the rails to reach a precipice and flirt with the idea of going off it emotionally. Because it's performance and not real life, you can enjoy that danger and that sense of imbalance and right yourself at the very end.

What to read next

I'm growing tired of self help, and brain insight types of books. But, what to read next? I'm trying to read a book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, for the first time in my life, but it's really hard to pay it attention.

 

I'm also reading a couple books on local edible wild plants. Mark called this very Lesbian.

 

Is that is then, am I going though a Lesbian phase of personal growth? What does that even mean?