Outliers: The Story of Success

Not sure what exactly to think of this book.

The core idea is that success comes from a combination of

1. hard work (10K hours in your discipline)
2. lucky timing (did you know most excecs in silicon valley were born within 2 years of each other in the 50's)
3. natural cultural advantage
   

From Publishers Weekly
Reviewed by Leslie Chang
In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display. Outliers begins with a provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an advantage in ice hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over time. We learn what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and ambition, each enjoyed an unusual opportunity to intensively cultivate a skill that allowed them to rise above their peers. A detailed investigation of the unique culture and skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively explains their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and then in the legal profession. Through case studies ranging from Canadian junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, from Asian math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of his own family in Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck account for success—and how historical legacies can hold others back despite ample individual gifts. Even as we know how many of these stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and serendipity to these narratives that make them fresh and surprising.One hazard of this genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children score higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and painstaking labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in East Asia for thousands of years; though fascinating in its details, the study does not prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math prowess, as Gladwell asserts. Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: No one, Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with the brilliantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone. But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man. In the end it is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on the findings of others—sociologists, psychologists, economists, historians—yet he rarely delves into the methodology behind those studies. And he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points; one is always left wondering about the data he evaluated and rejected because it did not support his argument, or perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922

Montecristo Carona

 

 

Perfectly rolled, smooth, with spice and oily notes. Well balanced and with a good, slow, even burn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montecristo_%28cigar_brand%29

Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life

Decent reinforcement of the GTD ideas but not much new here.

From Publishers Weekly
A rehashing of old—if successful—ground from his 2001 book Getting Things Done, Allen revisits his simple yet comprehensive system of organizing every aspect of one's life for career, professional and personal development—even addressing how to plan a vacation, choose a babysitter or arrange eldercare for a parent. The author's inarguable premise is that a complete and current inventory of commitments organized and reviewed in a systematic way can sharpen focus and allow for wiser decision making. Allen cautions that the book does not provide answers to tricky life choices; its methods will aid in developing the self-assurance to trust one's own solutions. Readers are guided through the process of obtaining control and perspective, organizing tasks and goals to reach the Getting Things Done (GTD) holy grail of an empty in-basket and e-mail inbox. Although the book purports to expand on the principles of GTD, there's very little new material in this latest offering, which serves more as a sales tool for the first one than for a project all on its own. Those seeking organizational nirvana would do best to invest in the original and give this one a pass. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
 

http://www.amazon.com/Making-All-Work-Winning-Business/dp/067001995X

Dead Space

 

 

Decent, if disgusting shooter. Has the wierd configuration of looking over the shoulder and controls could be better but graphically amazing and the story line is very good.

A cool feature is that you interact with holograms scattered over the surface areas of everything which is a very cool touch. As well the lighting and sound is incredible; it will keep you jumping. Some scenes are right out of the original Alien with the protagonist creeping down tight corridors with dimly lit strobes and scattered shadows. Worth a play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_%28video_game%29

Bioshock

 

 

Fun, interesting, compelling... at it's best art and at it's worst humor. Well worth a play through.

Set in an alternate history 1960, the game places the player in the role of a plane crash survivor named Jack, who must explore the underwater city of Rapture, and survive attacks by the mutated beings and mechanical drones that populate it. The game incorporates elements found in role-playing and survival games, and is described by the developers and Levine as a "spiritual successor" to their previous titles in the System Shock series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock

Evolving From Aquatic Apes?

http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

A must-read for anyone that's into math, economics, or just thinks the world's gone crazy.

The big idea: there are two classes of unknowns -- the "knowable unknowns" (risks you understand) and the "unknowable unknowns". The latter are things like 9/11, the printing press, and the Kennedy assassination. The impact of these far outweigh and guide the course of our civilization and daily lives than the risks we understand and take into account when we make decisions.

Taleb is a good author but is a little arrogant in his denegration of economists and the like and it will take some getting used to.

Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.

Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it’s something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.

The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.

Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."

In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature. --Chris Anderson
 

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp/1400063515