Book Review: Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card
I first became familiar with Orson Scott Card, as most people did, through “Ender’s Game” during the 1980′s. I was an instant–but not solid–fan. I found very quickly that my appreciation for Card was not unconditional. He is a very thoughtful, imaginative storyteller–the title he choses for himself–but I can’t say I like all of [...]
Random musings: 9/26/11
I watched this interview with Chelsea Clinton today. I’m pleased (and a little relieved) to see what a lovely and gracious young woman she’s become. I remember the out-of-bounds criticism launched at her when she was a teenager in the White House that would have devastated <i>any</i> young girl. I can only imagine what she endured [...]
Random musings: 9/23/2011
We went to a fundraiser picnic for an animal sanctuary last weekend. It’s interesting to see the type of people who tend to support animal causes. To say we stood out is an understatement. Most of them had multiple and exotic piercings, stretchings, and extensive tatoos, all of which seem ironic to me. If they [...]
Creating your own luck?
Feeling lucky? While sometimes luck truly is luck, there is new evidence to suggest that we can create our own luck sometimes. Psychologist Richard Wiseman conducted a study using people who would self-describe themselves as lucky or unlucky. His findings? “Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. [...]
Book Review: Zero History, by William Gibson
Several years ago I discovered William Gibson through an audio book version of his novel “Pattern Recognition”. The book was a fascinating dive into popular culture and the drive to monetize everything, but with an underlying thread of transcendant beauty. It quickly became one of my favorite novels, and I’ve listened to it several times [...]
Solyndra – Contradictions and bad business sense
While I usually enjoy reading Instapundit.com, he seems to be unaware of the contradiction on his site. Now I will admit that the Solyndra controversy looks bad, but let’s not make it worse than it is. First we have a link to this article, which claims that the Obama administration reworked the loan to Solyndra [...]
Facebook felons – An update
The other day I posted about a bill in Congress that would make it a felony to misrepresent oneself online. Evidently there is still one small lick of sense in Washington, because this morning I found this update: Senators Al Franken and Chuck Grassley proposed new language for the bill (thanks in part to Kerr’s [...]
Socializing and food
My brother recently wrote a blog post about the social custom of “going for coffee” and how non-coffee-drinkers, like Mormons (or rather people of the LDS faith, to be more accurate), miss out on some significant networking opportunities because of their choice not to drink—or be percieved as drinking—coffee. His post grabbed my attention and [...]
Random Musings 9/15/11
Warning: I’m feeling a bit snarky today. If you’re feeling snarky too, best move along down the interwebs. Remember that one guy, the “reporter” who moved in next door to the Palin family in Alaska while he wrote a book on them? The one that made Todd Palin decide to build a taller fence? He has [...]
Book Review: Men at Work – The Craft of Baseball
When I picked up this book I was expecting some sort of management training text drawing on baseball for analogies. That was because I borrowed this book from the community bookshelf at work, which is stocked mainly with management, leadership, business, and IT-related books. So let me begin by stating clearly this is not a [...]
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