This book was a pure delight. The subtitle "Adventures of a Curious Character" is spot-on. Feynman gave an amazingly human and honest view into his phThis book was a pure delight. The subtitle "Adventures of a Curious Character" is spot-on. Feynman gave an amazingly human and honest view into his philosophy and take on life, thought a series of stories.
One thing that struck me most deeply was his passion for learning new things. You would think a world-famous Physicist would just be passionate for Physics - but Feynman was curious about everything he saw. He dabbled in art and was successful enough to have a show, he joined a Brazilian Bongo group and competed with them, he hung out in Vegas until he grokked gambling, he spent time in strip bars in Arizona until he figured out how to pick up women, he cracked safes in Los Alamos for fun - the list goes on! My take: you should have your passions - but you should also have your hobbies. I think I need a new hobby :)
I really enjoyed his lessons learned from observing the Brazilian educational system. He noted that many of the students were simply memorizing words and formulas and had no understanding of the concepts they applied to. I think this is not a unique problem in education.
Another lesson learned from Feynman's studies of science is to never take any data for granted. Always always question the sources. Whenever Feynman did an experiment he would re-generate many of the numbers on his own - even if they had been published in other places. For many things we are (and not just in science) standing on the shoulders of giants. The easiest way to be led astray is if those results were never right to begin with.
I think Feynman was in his heart a true educator and scientist, with real integrity. And I think it drove him nuts how many important decisions are made using unscientific principles. This book was a light-hearted attempt to point that out - not to mention, a very entertaining read. ...more
Most stuff in this book I already knew (90%). But hearing it in a cohesive story is a great way to fodder new ideas - if you wanna think about the intMost stuff in this book I already knew (90%). But hearing it in a cohesive story is a great way to fodder new ideas - if you wanna think about the internet and where its going, its a great primer - and a quick read too.
Hearing the the Goto/Overture story was interesting. While it sounds obvious, its an impressive insight by Bill Gross that traffic with an intent (ie search traffic) is worth more than random traffic, and that if you played arbitrage in the middle you could make a lot of money. I like it when people can do math :)
I didn't know Google started in a garage. I learned more about Google's battle to stop SEO spammers. They usually change their algorithm to do this, which of course ends up screwing over legit businesses too - these legit businesses actually name each algorithm change like they were hurricanes - 'Florida' was when Google changed their algorithm on nov 14, 2003. ...more
Nothing revolutionary about this book, but interesting to hear Jack's story from his own mouth. GE is famous for the way it handles its employee revieNothing revolutionary about this book, but interesting to hear Jack's story from his own mouth. GE is famous for the way it handles its employee reviews, trimming the fat & promoting the best each year....more
This was a great book for programmers to read. It had a lot of very general, yet very useful advice for programmers. I loved the broken window theory This was a great book for programmers to read. It had a lot of very general, yet very useful advice for programmers. I loved the broken window theory of programming. Malcolm Gladwell argues the same theory cured New York's crime wave in the 90's in Blink...more
My old CEO and mentor (James Currier) gave me this book for christmas after I first started work at his company. He said they handed it out at HBS andMy old CEO and mentor (James Currier) gave me this book for christmas after I first started work at his company. He said they handed it out at HBS and it was a simple but very powerful intro to managing your finances. And it was. So forget Personal Finance For Dummies (which I also read) - start with this.
Personal finance is something that isn't taught in school, but is incredibly important - and the basics aren't very hard. I found this book invaluable as a young software engineer, when I was making a salary and didn't know how to invest it, and I would recommend it for anyone in their 20's. Even if all it does is get you to start to think about compound interest and what starting to save can do for you - that's *huge*. ...more
Really good book. It read like a bestseller (quick read), but had a lot of substance to stop and make you think.
three Rules of the tipping point: the Really good book. It read like a bestseller (quick read), but had a lot of substance to stop and make you think.
three Rules of the tipping point: the law of the few, the stickyness factor, the power of context.
Law of the Few (people who influence): - Connectors: super connectors (eg Paul Revere). William Dawes had the same mission as Paul Revere the same night but we haven't heard of him b/c Paul Revere was a super-connector & knew who to rouse. - Mavens: A Maven is a person who has information on a lot of different products or prices or places. This person likes to initiate discussions with consumers and respond to requests. They like to be helpers in the marketplace. - Salesmen: people with the skills of persuasion. Good at reading people entering into "conversational harmony" with them. Facial gestures (nods, smiles, frowns) are key indicators. Emotional Mimicry. Studies showed Peter Jennings viewers voted Republican b/c he unconsciously smiled more while covering Reagan.
Stickyness Factor - Sesame street succeeded b/c it learned to make TV sticky. It did a TON of testing with focus groups of kids to increase stickyness (how much kids remembered) of each show. They would cut scenes that didn't hold attention until each show was good. - Blues Clues did even more testing and discovered that kids love repetition - it plays the same show 5 times in a row and kids love it. - make the message personal to make it memorable
The Power of Context - Broken window theory. NYC cleaned up its crime epidemic by cleaning off the graffiti from its subways. - Often to change human behavior you have to change the context the problem is presented in. - Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo proved that context matters. - law of 150: a person can't 'know' more than 150 people, so companies usually start to fail at that point. Gore-Tex breaks up a company into 2 once it hits 150, because they've found things work better that way....more
Interesting Tidbits - Three forces need to create the long tail: 1. democratize production: give average people the ability to create quality content Interesting Tidbits - Three forces need to create the long tail: 1. democratize production: give average people the ability to create quality content (movies, music, blogs) 2. democratize distribution: technology to aggregate *all* the content in a genre (Amazon, Netflix, iTunes) 3. Connect Supply and Demand: filters to help people find the niche's they are interested in (Google, recommendations, best-seller lists) - One quarter of Amazon's sales come from books outside its top 100,000 titles. Thus having a long tail adds ~33% to your bottom line. - Ranking bestsellers across niche's genre's gives little value. Filters to rank items must be applied within each niche to become relevant. Goodreads could improve here. - As the number of niche's increases, the ability of people to consume more content within the genre increases. This depends on the genre, but it gives me hope that we can increase the number of people who read through Goodreads, by creating better filters to connect readers of various niche's. - each year 200,000 books are published in english, and fewer than 20,000 make it into a bookstore. Only 2% of the books published in 2004 sold more than 5000 copies, and can be considered profitable. - There is another factor that determines why people create content, other than money: reputation. - Ebay has 60 million active users ...more
A must read - really interesting stories about how people process things unconsciously. - for instance, you can't hide your feeling about race from yA must read - really interesting stories about how people process things unconsciously. - for instance, you can't hide your feeling about race from your unconscious - take the Race Test (http://www.understandingprejudice.org...). It said I (and 13% of test-takers) have a 'moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American'. It also said 48% of test-takers have a "Strong automatic preference for White people" - crazy! - I loved the bit about President Warren Harding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_H...), who - according to the author, basically got elected because he "looked presidential". I firmly believe looks matter - hey after all I do live in CA where we have the Governator......more
I read this right after my dad passed away from cancer. Lance was a hero of my dad's for some time, but I'd never seen his autobiography until I foundI read this right after my dad passed away from cancer. Lance was a hero of my dad's for some time, but I'd never seen his autobiography until I found it on my dad's shelf. Lance's drive to survive and win against all odds is an inspiration to anyone, but especially to cancer survivors & their family. It really helped me get through a difficult time, and inspired me to start doing triathlons with Team In Training (a great organization which helps benefit cancer victims).
A fascanating history of the NY Times. Interesting tidbits were:
- The family was Jewish but so afraid of being dubbed a Jewish paper that they barelyA fascanating history of the NY Times. Interesting tidbits were:
- The family was Jewish but so afraid of being dubbed a Jewish paper that they barely covered the holocaust - most stories about the mass graves were buried on page 7 and didn't mention the fact that the victims were mostly Jews. - Adolf Ochs, the first of the family to own the times, bought it completely on borrowed money. He was so in debt it took him 20 years to truly own it. That guy had some large cojones... - The author really played up the stiff competition each generation for publishership. Seems as the the names (ie Arthur Sulzberger) always won.....more
This is the only poker book I read, but it came very highly recommended and it didn't disappoint. It helped me transition from a total newbie to an abThis is the only poker book I read, but it came very highly recommended and it didn't disappoint. It helped me transition from a total newbie to an above average newbie. I especially liked all the example hands in the book - helped a lot!...more
A fascinating history of science. Ever curious how everything we know about the world came to be - read this! I loved reading about what old greats liA fascinating history of science. Ever curious how everything we know about the world came to be - read this! I loved reading about what old greats like Darwin thought about the world - they were all right about most things, but also very wrong about some things - makes you wonder how much we are wrong about today!
Another interesting piece was how many of the world's prominent scientists had the time to do their research because they came from rich families. Very different from todays notion of 'trust funders'....more
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