Books

I have been making frequent posts so far. I hope it is not just the novelty that this is new and I continue along this path.

...back on topic.

In my youth I was and still am to this day a HUGE fan of fantasy novels. I remember the sacred time period where I discovered C.S Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. It was 5th grade. The very next series in my reading adventure was of course Tolken. It was over for me at the point. I was hooked. For most of my life, I dismissed none-fiction as uninteresting. Boy was I wrong. I was inspired to start reading non-fiction for four reason.

First and foremost, I want to be an elite software engineer. As such it makes sense to read as much about software development, software history, and really anything related to software in general...really anything related to engineering in general. Surprisingly, I find reading postmortem "documentaries" about engineering projects or even sort of "lessons from the trenches" vastly interesting and often enlightening. I will not deny that I have a lot of nerd or geek like tendencies.

Second, in my "old" age I have taken a liking to politics and current events as they relate to one another. Now, if you want to participate in "healthy" debate then I find it necessary to be informed. Nothing pisses me off more than arguing with someone that can't defend their point of view with any sort of logic. Because it's "moral" is probably the most common and most infuriating answer that I get. In any event, this interest has inspired me to research a number of different topics. The first such topic was laissez-faire capitalism. Ultimately, this spawned an interest in the history of American policy, mainly to understand where it diverged or even if it actually diverged from the original founding principles of this country, which the right so often like to propose.

Third, I find it fascinating to study the effects of technology on our society as whole, such as the advent of TV, the Internet and Social Media. This is pretty broad and I don't have clear direction, but I find it more interesting to study the "negative" or "unintended consequence" of such technologies. How they change the face of how companies do business and interact is sort of interesting, but also pretty obvious from my perspective.

Fourth, I am beginning to have to strong interest in business, or to be more specific, how to make them grow. How do you position yourself in the market place, how do you figure out really what your customer want, how do you make make yourself better than your competitors, how do you figure out what your customers will want and how do you convince them that they actually want it. Perhaps I am skipping over the "how to start them" part of the process, but I think there will be a lot similarities. Interesting problems none the less and reading books by successful entrepreneurs is a good start in the right direction.

Now, that my new found interests have been explained, onto the book list.

Resent Reads:

Eat People by Andy Kessler

This book is basically a high level description of how to be a successful entrepreneur. In doing so the author brings to light some basic economic philosophies that may not be apparent to most people.

The Mythical Man-Month by Fredrick P. Brooks, Jr.

This is probably the only classic in the software industry. I am reading this 30+ years after the fact and honestly all his observation seem obvious to me, but then I realize this is where it started. The books is the source or patient zero for much of the "best practices" we find common in software development today. What really amazes me that the problems they had back then are pretty much the same we have today. All that really says is that technology is not the limiting factor in software development. The limiting factor is people and people don't change.

I just purchased six new books.

Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley

Hacker's Delight by Henry S. Warren

The above two are clearly career related and pretty much highly regarded so I thought that I would check them out.

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions by Guy Kawasaki

The guy helped make Apple what it is today. He has written a couple of books. This is the first I picked up. We will see how I like it.

The First Tycoon The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles

I don't know a lot about Vanderbilt, but the little I did find out made me want to learn about him. I am pretty sure Vanderbilt might have been one of the most interesting and influential people in US history.

The "S" Word by John Nichols

This book is flat out about Socialism. Amongst my colleagues we have surmised that the influence of Socialism on the US political landscape started from day one. Ironically, enough this book is exactly about the history of Socialism in in America. To be clear, the author is a proponent of Socialism. I am not in anyway shape or form for Socialism. However, the author supports his socialist agenda by proposing that America has been founded on socialist ideas from day one. This is exactly what I was looking for to support our idea despite the fact the author has an agenda. Really, I just think it provides hard evidence for our theory, but I haven't read past the first 20 pages yet.

Idiot America by Charles P. Peirce

This book is hilarious. I am only on page 60, but I never laughed out loud when reading and I seriously laughed out loud at least 5 times. It contains great commentary on how intellect is a thing of past and mass opinion is more powerful than fact. I highly suggest this book. It also makes some interesting commentary about the intent of the founding fathers and how that has been diluted by TV, Internet and Social Media. Also, the book inspired me to learn more about James Madison. The only annoying thing about this book is that the author has an obvious left wing or liberal stance. In one instance he makes a comment about global warming that is slightly disturbing. He essential makes fun of James Inhofe's comment that global warming is hoax, suggesting that there is ample evidence to support global warming. While I won't dispute the fact that the earth is warming, there is NO evidence that suggests humans are accelerating it. The tone of book suggests that the political interest in global warming is correct, which is to say that human are the cause. We might be, but until that is proven you can't assert that with any authority. This makes the author the brunt of his own jokes.