First off what I've been reading since I got down to San Clemente. The sudden posting of what I've been reading has nothing to do with a recent entry to the world of blogging by someone else. There's no residual competition there at all... Really... (Actually I have been doing this for a while and let it drop off recently).
Breaking The Spell by Daniel C. Dennett: Very interesting! It looks at the phenomenon of religion scientifically and is making a call to others to do the same. Now this doesn't mean he's looking at how Moses made the river part, but rather why do people believe this and points out that most people actually just believe in believing in it. One of the most interesting parts is the discussion of religion as a meme. For those that don't know (like me before I read the book and looked into it) a meme is an idea that evolves just like animals evolve and also follows the rules of natural selection. This helps in looking at religions for what makes certain survive and some fade away. Some particularly interesting points are a theory of how very early religion began based on the human tendency to give human feelings to objects, and his arguments why religious people should not object to science studying religion. I'll let amazon explain further if you are interested.
The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki: Good stuff for anyone looking to start a company or working at a start up. Otherwise it's fairly specific and probably not of general interest. Thanks Mom and Dad for the book. If you are involved with start ups I'd say check it out.
In the Line of Fire by Jerry Weissman: A how to on answering questions at presentations. Seems like great advice and also has some interesting commentary on politics and the influence of how candidates handle themselves at public speaking events. The one downside I see is it seems like for the advice to work it would require some practice, which as someone who doesn't give many presentations I'm not sure how well I could actually pull off his suggestions. Thanks again Mom and Dad for the book.
Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold: After reading the foundation series I decided that those Hugo people must know what they are talking about (even if they do have the worst website ever for a group based on nerdyness). I saw that Bujold had won multiple Hugo's so I decided to try one of her Hugo winners. I really hate to say this, but here it is - I realized while reading this book that I almost never read books written by women. Not that I'm against reading books by women, just as I look back I realize that I rarely do. This book did not encourage me to reverse the trend. I'm not really going to hold one book against all female authors. The first 200 pages were fairly good even if a bit slow, and being told from a women's perspective really didn't detract from it for me (a large part of one of my favorite series, Dune, is told from a woman's perspective, of course it's written by a man so maybe it doesn't count). But the next 400 pages which had a scifi background, were really about getting married and having a baby which didn't exactly suck me in (the real point isn't just my opinion - she says so in the afterward). I'll try something by a female author again one of these days, but next time I'll make sure the author's main interest isn't writing about starting a family.
Hmmm - don't really want to end on insulting half the human race so time to think of something else to say...
On Monday I went up to San Jose - if anyone in San Jose reads this, don't be insulted I didn't call, I flew in at 8 am and flew out at 8 pm (and flew from San Diego so yes that was a long day). I'm not completely certain, but I think this was the first time I've flown and had the origin and final destination in the same state. Wasn't up to anything too exciting up there, just went up to meet with some people that the company I work for works with. Well, the one interesting thing is that while I was there on Monday I was informed that I needed to get some info together for someone else to present to the CEO (as well as four other executives and my boss) on Tuesday. Then, on Tuesday, as we sat down for the meeting, I was informed that I should go ahead and present the part that I had prepared. I'm not really complaining because it's nice to have exposure to upper management, but there was some anxiety as I decided what to say while looking at most of the company's executive team.
A few random items:
I think that a few of Akshay's most recent posts are fairly interesting, especially the talks.
My Dad introduced me to woot. I'm yet to buy anything but I find it funny and know one of these days I'll actually pull out the credit card. Note: if you do become a woot fan you should move out to CA (well you should move to CA for many reasons) because midnight on the east coast is 9 pm on the west coast so it is easy to catch the items just after they are posted.
I never understood adults who got tired at 10 pm and said it's because they had to get up for work, but it's 10 pm and I'm tired because I have to get up for work.
Oh yeah - 4th of July - went to Laguna Beach with Eric and Evan and others - good time!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
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4 comments:
1) I resent the theft of my post idea. *hrmph*.... (to be entirely fair, I stole the idea from a friend of a friend who has a plan to read a book/week for a year. I'm interested to see how I compare :-) So far, 4 books since June 17!) And besides, in terms of quality.. you almost definitely win this one. Real books vs. brain candy ... but I love my brain candy :-)
2) I've read a lot of books by women and I must say, I don't think any of them have been about wanting to have a family. But then again, I'm a woman, so maybe I just don't notice ;-) And since we're on the topic, I read the first book of Dune (and liked it) but someone told me not to bother with the rest. I did see the miniseries :-) Should I finish it?
3) Hmm, I don't really have a 3 but a list of 2 just seemed silly.
If I ever write a book, I promise it won't be about starting a family.
Jess - thanks - if you write a book I'll read it.
Julie - The first book of Dune is definitely the best of the series. 2 is the worst (just not a lot happens, although in someways that's the point), 3 is a little better than 2, 4 is about the same as 3, then 5 and 6 get really good again. I think one of the nice things is that it's 6 books of about 400 pages each so he has a long time to build and build upon the world and add new aspects. If you ever find yourself under challenged by a summer internship and spending a lot of time on the T getting to and from there then definitely read them.
Duly relegated to "if I'm bored" :-) I guess the Dune series is one of those "If you sit it out through all the bad, I'll reward you with good again!"
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