The Seventeen Traditions

I finished reading The Seventeen Traditions. I got a copy when I went to see Ralph Nader speak in Olympia a couple months ago.

It was a quick read and only took me a few days to read. (The fact that it's only 150 pages long and the page size is small helped). The "Seventeen Traditions" are principles taught to him by his parents when he was a young child. So it's filled with stories about his childhood and about his parents and siblings. It's nostalgic - e.g. "A new toy was a special occasion, and most of them were the kind that could be used again and again - tops, crayons, picture books, puzzles, and dolls. Today's homes are often overflowing with dozen of complex, often violent electronic plastic toys, and yet children soon grow bored with them and demand the latest upgrade or fade." - and it is also a bit idealistic. Nevertheless, it made a number of points and provided some food for thought, so I think the book met its objective.

The Broker

I haven't read a novel in a while. I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately like Collapse, The Goal, Code Complete, Lonely Planet Denmark, and The Modern Defence.

While I was home for Christmas, I borrowed John Grisham's The Broker from my brother-in-law. It's John Grisham doing a spy novel. (e.g. The main character was a lawyer that a bunch of spies want to kill). I liked it and read it pretty quickly. I think I need to read more novels, they're a quicker read and more entertaining than non-fiction.

No More Fish?

...this century is the last century of wild seafood... The BBC has an article about the rapid decline of fisheries: 'Only 50 years left' for sea fish.

It reminds of Collapse, by Jared Diamond, which I just finished reading. It talked a lot of over fishing, over logging, soil erosion, pollution, over populating, etc. It's a good book.

Fast Food Nation

Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behaviour. -- Eric Schlosser

Fast Food Nation is a good book. I expected it to be something akin to Super Size Me, but it is much more like The Corporation. I enjoyed reading it and would definitely recommend reading it.

Assorted Interesting Articles

• I finished reading The World Is Flat this weekend. I thought it was good book. So I found BBC's brief comparison of China and India (as well as the US), which shows things like GDP, population, literacy, etc. with projections out to 2050, interesting.


• The Chess Olympiad started this weekend in Turin. I can't find any results on the "offical" website, but an Austrian site has a good level of detail - Team Canada Results shows them at 1-1 after 2 rounds and the individual results are given for each round.


• New York Times: Slim Margin Seems to Signal Montenegro's Independence. The EU and Serbia & Montenegro decided to use 55% as their threshold for separation. This reminded me about the whole debate surrounding 50% + 1 during Quebec's last referendum.


• Slashdot has an article Bloggers are the New Plagiarism complaining about bloggers who quote large blocks of text and don't add value. Sometimes I do that [1], but most of the time I do not [2 and 3]. My thinking is that I only quote blocks from the original article, when I think it's an valuable article, but it's from a news article that is likely to disappear (i.e. Checkout all the broken links to the LA Times in [1]). Without a copy of the pertinent parts of the article the post has no context or value. Is that a reasonable rationale?

The Pragmatic Programmer

I finished reading The Pragmatic Programmer a couple weeks ago. (And have been meaning to mention it, but kept forgetting). The book outlines an approach to software development summed up by its first "tip": Care About Your Craft - Why spend your life developing software unless you care about doing it well?

What you learn in school tends to be either aspects of Computer Science or the syntax and features of various programming languages. Both are useful, but developing software and working with complex systems have many other facets, many of which are best learned though experience. The book is a collection of short chapters that discuss what the authors' have learned about the later.

The engineering process - creating maintainable and testable software, design, documentation, and debugging - receives a lot of coverage. But other engineering topics and skills, including tools, architecture, communication, scoping and estimation, as well as career development, are discussed. The writing style is clear and full of examples, but concise (in a good way).

I highly recommend this book as it will (likely) introduce many new and helpful ideas as well as solidifying things that you may have learned along the way but aren't quite sure how to articulate or reason about.

Modern Library

An interesting list that I found: Modern Library's 100 best books of the 20th Century. (Actually it's four lists of one hundred - two fiction and two non-fiction).

A Farewell To Arms

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

I'm trying to become well-read. Last month I read Profiles In Courage by JFK and over the weekend I finished reading A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I'm not quite sure how to describe A Farewell To Arms. It's an interesting read to say the least. But, I also found it a little bit confusing. (Life was easier when you were in school and there was someone spoon-fed you the answers!?). I guess I'll have to ponder its meaning some more.

Fahrenheit

Despite the fact that my primary occupation right now is loitering in my parents' basement, I seem to be busy all the time.

Thursday I went to see The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind with some of my friends at the Princess Cinema. The movie was different, but good. I've never really been a Jim Carey fan, but I thought his acting was decent. I'd have to say that it's a film that is worth seeing.

Friday, I finished reading Hegemony Or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky. I've never read anything by Chomsky before, but I have heard interesting things about him. I thought he gave compelling arguments for his thesis that America has held the prolonged goal to dominate the World at all cost (while eroding social programs and further enriching the elite). There is no doubt that the Right would describe it as seditious if the US was actually well read. (The National Endowment for the Arts said the other day that 53% of adult Americans don't read books at all). However, Chomsky is equal scathing in his criticism of Democratic presidents as well. (Although the Reagan-Bush-Bush administrations receive the bulk of his attack). Overall, I would say his assessment is a reasonable one. That said, there are a number of aspects where his argument is susceptible to a counter-arguments. (e.g. He scathes Clinton for acting in Kosovo, but also scathes Clinton for not acting in East Timor. If action and inaction are both reprehensible then it is hard not to be condemned). It is definitely a book worth reading as it adds perspective.

Yesterday I saw Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 with some other friends. I thought it was a good documentary. A lot of material was covered, but the current administration can be reproached along many avenues. However, I didn't learn a lot of new facts nor did the movie seem overly damning of Bush. Perhaps, it is because I live outside the US, where the media is not so sycophantic or perhaps it is rather hard to top the degree of criticism reached by Hegemony Or Survival. Or maybe after all the fuss made by the RNC, I expected the movie to be more assaulting. Again, this is worth seeing because it adds perspective. However, it lacks the entertaining moments contained in Bowling For Columbine or Supersize Me, so go expecting a more serious movie.

The Teeth of the Tiger

I finished reading The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy a couple days ago. It's the first novel that I've read in a long time. (Too many textbooks and assorted non-fiction). I thought it was pretty good. It was shorter than most of his books and, consequently, the plot and characters were not as rich as some of his other books. (Jack Ryan is no longer the main character - he's retired and his son, aptly named Jack Ryan Jr., is now the protagonist). The only thing I didn't like is that it was set up a little much for a sequel - a few obvious, but unspecific, foreshadowings to characters and events that don't occur. All in all though, it was good read.