b r a y d e n . o r g / Books

rss_response@brayden.org 2010-02-09T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookDarkStar http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookDarkStar The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookPlutoFiles

rss_response@brayden.org 2010-02-09T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPlutoFiles http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPlutoFiles The Council of the Cursed - Sister Fidelma, #19 http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookCouncilCursed

rss_response@brayden.org 2010-02-09T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookCouncilCursed http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookCouncilCursed Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn: A Hitchhiker's Adventures in the New Iran http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookIranianRappersPersianPorn

rss_response@brayden.org 2010-02-09T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookIranianRappersPersianPorn http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookIranianRappersPersianPorn The American Future: A History http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookAmericanFuture

rss_response@brayden.org 2010-02-09T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookAmericanFuture http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookAmericanFuture The Spoke http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookSpoke

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-11-20T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookSpoke http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookSpoke In the Country of Men http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookInCountryMen

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-11-20T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookInCountryMen http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookInCountryMen Alexandria - Marcus Didius Falco, #19 http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookAlexandria

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookAlexandria http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookAlexandria Why Does E=mc^2?: And Why Should We Care? http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookWhyDoesEmc2

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookWhyDoesEmc2 http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookWhyDoesEmc2 Mindfield: How Brain Science is Changing Our World http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookMindfield Lone Frank is a Danish journalist with a Ph.D. in neurobiology. She has written a survey of the latest research and findings in brain science, explaining how that research must affect the way we think about a wide range of topics from justice to aesthetics. She interviewed many of the leading researchers and wrote the book as a set of interconnected essays about that research. The book is fascinating and engaging, and has the right level of popularization and detail.
rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookMindfield http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookMindfield Open Veins of Latin America http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookOpenVeinsLatinAmerica This book was recently made famous when Hugo Chavez presented it to Barack Obama at their first meeting. It is an historical analysis of the mechanisms and effects of colonialism and imperialism as they have been employed in Latin America. The mechanisms have changed over the centuries, but the effects have remained: massive transfer of wealth from Latin America to the dominant imperial powers, and misery for the vast majority of people in Latin America.

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookOpenVeinsLatinAmerica http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookOpenVeinsLatinAmerica The Think Big Manifesto http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookThinkBigManifesto Michael Port is a kind of life coach for entrepreneurs. He seems to have a genuine desire to help people break through the self-imposed barriers that holds them back from reaching their full potential. But this book just doesn't offer much of value. It is a very small book (thankfully!) but could be made much smaller without loss of useful content. In fact, if you see the book on the shelf, open it to page 164 and read the remaining 3 pages of the book: there you will find everything the book has to say.
rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookThinkBigManifesto http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookThinkBigManifesto Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookPragmaticThinkingLearning Andy Hunt, the second member of the Pragmatic Programmers, has written a book aimed at helping software developers learn faster and better. He takes us through a wide variety of techniques to increase the effectiveness of right-brain thinking (which he calls 'R-mode'), gain better focus, read more effectively, etc.

There is nothing really new here - you can find the material in other popular books. But Hunt presents the material in a way likely to make sense to software developers so in that sense he has produced something new.

I would recommend this book to any developer facing a new project or new job. At least some of the techniques are likely to be help get you up to speed and increase your effectiveness.
rss_response@brayden.org 2009-10-11T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPragmaticThinkingLearning http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPragmaticThinkingLearning Cry of the Heron - Tony Lowell Mysteries http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookCryHeron

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-09-29T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookCryHeron http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookCryHeron The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookPleasuresSorrowsWork

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-09-29T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPleasuresSorrowsWork http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookPleasuresSorrowsWork A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookMathematiciansLament

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-08-16T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookMathematiciansLament http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookMathematiciansLament Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookSpadeArcher It would be easy enough to criticize this novel on a number of fronts: the forgettable and not very believable plots, the over-attention to minute details of San Francisco streets and places, the almost parodic use of the Hammett style. But these are inconsequential when held up against the sheer pleasure of reading a Sam Spade novel. Spade skirts the law and has no time for its representatives, but holds his own ethical code inviolate, even when doing so puts himself at risk. He is also a kind of renaissance man, instantly 'getting' literary references from Shakespeare to Fitzgerald.

In the introductory case in this novel Spade has been hired to find an absent husband - a man who simply disappeared one day, leaving behind a successful business and a happy family life. When Spade finds him, the man tells him that he had been nearly killed by a falling beam, and that the randomness of it brought him to the realization that if life is driven by random forces then he himself might as well live his life randomly. But in his report on the incident Spade notes that once the man adjusted to having survived a falling beam, he 'adjusted right back' to his old life, just in a different city and a different wife and a different family. This is an implied, though unstated, reference to Eliot's observation that 'humankind cannot bear very much reality' - and is an echo of the existentialist thought so prevalent in the 1920s in the aftermath of a devastating war that removed all possibility of belief in a stable world and a stable place for ourselves in it. Spade's ability to see this and to express it so compactly is one of the great appeals of the Spade character. Gores does a fine job here.

There are similar tidbits throughout the novel, but the overall arc of the storyline is a bit muddled. The novel is really three interlinked novellas, linked only by the characters and by a shadowy criminal master mind who nearly, but not quite, succeeds in stealing a large quantity of gold in the first story and who returns later in a variety of disguises (sometimes with little apparent reason) to get his hands on the gold, and to make Spade's life a misery for having thwarted him in the first place. The three stories take place at four-year intervals through the 1920s, ending at the precise moment when The Maltese Falcon begins. We are given a plausible back-story for the Spade-Archer relationship, we learn why the secretary Effie Perrine is so loyal to Spade, we meet Sid Wise, the attorney that Spade consults occasionally, and we're given plenty of background on Spade himself. We also find out that Spade has a nearly photographic memory for every street corner in his adopted San Francisco, and that he is equally at ease with street thugs, politicians, and bankers. In short, there's nothing here that disturbs our image of the Sam Spade played by Humphrey Bogart. rss_response@brayden.org 2009-07-26T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookSpadeArcher http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookSpadeArcher Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookTwitterTipsTricksTweets This is a reference manual for twitter. You might think that a twitter reference manual would be on the list of shortest books ever, but there is now a substantial ecosystem built around twitter, well documented in this guide. As a casual and occasional user of twitter I found this to be a useful guide - assuming I ever decide to be more than a casual user.

The book starts with four chapters on the basics of using twitter: signing up, customizing your profile, sending updates, and following others. Then there is a longish chapter on how to use twitter from your mobile phone, covering both SMS and non-SMS interfaces, a nice summary of twitter text commands, twitter mobile applications, and external mobile-friendly sites. Then there's a chapter on twitter searches, including a nice discussion of hashtags, location searches, people search, how to turn searches into favorites, and numerous external twitter search sites.

The book concludes with two chapters on how to extend and improve the twitter experience, including desktop clients, gadgets and widgets, url shorteners and tools for previewing shortened urls, integration with facebook and linked-in, and twitter tracking and trending tools.

The book is well-indexed and has a detailed table of contents, making it easy to use as a reference manual. It also covers tools that you might not know about, suggesting ways of using twitter that are only obvious after you've seen them (much like twitter itself).

I would recommend this book if you plan to use twitter to drive traffic to your site, enhance your social network, or drive your consulting business. And on a more general level, the wealth of tools and uses that has grown up around such a simple concept - a concept so simple that most of us wondered early on why anyone would bother - is instructive at a deep level about the power of social networking. This book serves as a good introduction to that world. rss_response@brayden.org 2009-07-04T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookTwitterTipsTricksTweets http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookTwitterTipsTricksTweets Zen and Now: on the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/view/Books/BookZenNow I have read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 2 or 3 times in the past 35 years, and feel that I know it reasonably well. So it came as a surprise to learn that others who have read and enjoyed it find such different things in it. My interest in it has always been around the discussion of quality that winds its way through the book. The rest - the insanity, the road trip, the relationship between Pirsig and his son - somehow escaped my notice as elements that might be considered central to understanding the book. But after reading Zen and Now I can see that many, probably most, readers do see those other elements as being by far the more important aspects of the book.

The author, Mark Richarson, set out on his motorcycle to retrace the Pirsig trip from Minnesota to San Francisco. Many others have also done this, and there are websites with GPS way-points to guide the way, right down to the rest stops, cafes, and gas stations where Pirsig and company stopped on their trip. Richardson consciously adopts a narrative style and structure that mirrors the original book. It's actually a little distracting at first, because sometimes it's hard to tell when he is quoting from the original and when he is telling his own story. But pretty soon he settles into a good rhythm, cross-cutting between his own journey, the original trip, the (original) book, the ideas in the book, and Pirsig's biography. By the end, I enjoyed this book very much.

rss_response@brayden.org 2009-06-12T00:00:00Z DaleBrayden 1.1 updated major http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookZenNow http://www.brayden.org/twiki/bin/rdiff/Books/BookZenNow