Realm of the Wombat

It took about a hundred pages, but this turned into a pretty good book. That’s about when the action picked up, but also when I figured out that this was a true story. It’s quite strange to read a book from the mid-1980’s in the eWorld of 2007. The author spends a significant amount of words extolling the virtues of email, the internet, and 1200 baud modems. One theme is timeless though. Government agencies pass the buck and don’t communicate. Not surprisingly, it’s the same agencies that should have been communicating and taking responsibility for the attacks on 9/11 and pre-war intelligence.

This is not an easy premise to buy into, judging by who the president is and what’s played on the radio. What it boils down to however is sample size. Even if it’s from the world’s leading expert, the judgment from a single person is at a disadvantage compared to the collected opinion of many. Surowiecki is a financial journalist, so he spends much of the book discussing the repercussions on markets and the best way to run a company. Google has innovatively applied this principle to the design of their search engine.

Of course, this has implications in politics and government as well. I immediately thought of the differences in how the Lincoln and Bush cabinets were constructed. Lincoln chose people that did not agree with him, i.e., people that thought independently of him. Bush surrounded himself with people that agree with him and suppresses independent thought. One of these presidents was successful in his war; one hasn’t been. Hillary Clinton has said that she will follow the Lincoln model. Whether she is given the opportunity or keeps this promise remains to be seen, but I hope that our next leader considers the wisdom of crowds.

Surowiecki appeared on WNYC’s RadioLab in 2005.

Does anyone remember the pre-Daily Show Jon Stewart? I don’t remember much about him, except that MTv kept giving him shows. They weren’t funny. I didn’t think anything he said was funny. When Stewart replaced Craig Kilborn on The Daily Show, I actually thought it was a step down for Comedy Central (if that’s possible). He’s has since redeemed himself with bits such as this and become a huge star. Unfortunately, this collection of short stories was published in 1999, so it’s more of the MTv days and less of the Comedy Central days. It’s full of irreverence for the likes of Martha Stewart and Bill Gates, which I appreciate, but it’s just not that funny.

The Kite Runner is the five-tool player of books; it does a lot of things well. But, as with many five-tool players in baseball, it has no truly outstanding points. The plot is good, but a tad formulaic. The theme of redemption has been done better elsewhere. I hoped this would be sort of an Afghan analog of Reading Lolita in Tehran, but even though Afghanistan is the initial setting and the culture is referred to frequently, I don’t feel like I learned that much. If you don’t expect miracles, or if you need something to read on a plane, then it’ll serve you well.

The Tipping Point evolved from an explanation of word-of-mouth into a study on epidemic theory on social trends. Like Gladwell’s other book, Blink, the chapters are layed out as a series of personal anecdotes and sociological or psychological experiments which support the chapter’s hypothesis. Highlights include the fall and rise of Hush Puppies and the rise, fall of Airwalks (no relation), development of Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues, and the innovative corporate architecture of the Gore Corporation. It’s not quite as entertaining a read as Blink, but being structured around the concepts of connectors, mavens, and salesmen, the thesis of the book is much more apparent.

Gladwell’s blog

I really thought this would be a great book. The subtitle is “The Education of a Carnival Con-Artist.” That sounded like a sure fire winner to me, but it just didn’t work. The first half of the book is about how the author doesn’t respect his father and thus ends up with the carnival. The second half is about he is trying to rise through the ranks of the carnival games from the lowest level childrens games to the big money makers, which have no possible way to win. I don’t know why I thought the story of a guy ripping off innocent Michiganders would be interesting. I’ve never been conned into playing a carnival game, but I feel like he conned me into reading this book.

So prior to The World Is Flat, I read Collapse. The conclusion to that book was that that if China and India consume resources at the rate of Americans, the world is going to descend into an apocalyptic state of war, famine, and turmoil. After finishing The World Is Flat, I’m convinced this is inevitable. Oh, it might come faster because Mexico could join that group of emerging countries. I think this should be the #1 issue of the 2008 election, but nobody that decides the outcome of elections (i.e. Ohio and Florida) is paying attention.

This is not the easiest book to read, and Friedman spends too much time expounding the virtues of globalization (and there are many). But while I don’t think he devotes enough time to offering solutions, he does address the threat of terrorism by Middle Eastern extremists. He also chides President Bush for his failure to inspire America to become independent of oil, suggesting a national program for scientists to develop reliable renewable energy sources. There’s good stuff in there, but the overall sense isn’t quite right.

One more thing. Did you know that there are some McDonald’s drive-thrus that are answered by Indian call centers? Yeah, that blew my mind too.

Friedman’s official site and wikipedia entry

A book where a major storyline is the investigation of a stolen donut is a special thing. The scary part is that this is based on an actual incident at Hewlett-Packard. The rest of the novel doesn’t draw as literally from Max Barry’s time at the computer giant, but what does it say about HP when Zephyr Holdings (the company in Company) has no product, no customers, and seemingly no purpose?

Max Barry is making a pretty nice life for himself (and family) satirizing the corporate world, and Company’s imaginative scenario is equal in stature to his two prior novels. The execution here is good, but not quite to the level of Syrup and Jennifer Government, which are still enjoyable after multiple readings.

Max has set up a website, Tales of Corporate Oppression, for stolen-donut-type tales from the office.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is Diamond’s history of the world. Collapse is Diamond’s prediction for the future based on the success or failure of past civilizations. The conclusion is that there are 12 major environmental challenges facing us, and if we don’t overcome all of them, there’s going to be a sharp decline in population. After reading the final chapter, Diamond somehow closes with a cautiously optimistic outlook.

This book was probably too heavy for commute reading. The material was extremely interesting, especially the history of Easter Island, but it took me a very long time to get through it.

One of the most striking images from Collapse is that the Norse Greenland colony is considered a failed experiment. It lasted 800 years. Europeans colonized the Americas 500 years ago. We haven’t proven anything yet.

Danny Wallace is the same guy that decided to say yes to almost all questions, which almost got him killed, but worked out in the end. But before his affirmative action campaign, he managed to start a cult, although he’d call it a collective. It wasn’t on purpose mind you, and didn’t really even have a purpose for the first few months. They’ve since been dedicated to performing random acts of kindness on Fridays. I’m not sure how many “joinees” are involved now (definitely more than 4000), but it has spread outside of Europe, the forum is active, and there’s even a podcast site. Join Me is the tale of the cult’s humble beginnings, first priestly member, and struggle to hide it from its leader’s girlfriend. I’d probably recommend Yes Man first, but Join Me is an excellent follow up for those of you who enjoy mad cap fun.

Add this to the list of books you can finish on a coast-to-coast flight.

This guy might be more of a real life Kramer than Kenny Kramer. He doesn’t seem to work, but starts these elaborate (and somewhat ridiculous) projects that seem quite expensive. Yet, Danny lands on his feet. Crazy.

See the official site for more info and how to join. I probably will.

This is a humorous little tale Dice picked up for me for Christmas. While I would have been happy with a compendium of Pres centered jokes (and there are many), the book’s main feature is useful information. One of the highlights are biographies of younger Democrats that represend reasons to be optimistic for a post-W world. Or if you can’t possibly deal with our current leadership, there are seven suggestions for countries to move to. There is an accompanying web site at thebushsurvivalbible.com which solicits and posts additional ways to deal with the second term. Hang in there America!

Labyrinth of Evil is the bridge between Episodes 2 and 3 of the Star Wars movie saga. Unfortunately, the book merely connects the dots between the movies and doesn’t add much to the overall Star Wars plotline. In contrast, Shadows of the Empire, which takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, actually develops the familiar characters. Furthermore, the story is exciting even though we know where everyone will end up. For the non-hardcore Star Wars fan, I recommend the Han Solo trilogy, which chronicles the youth and smuggler days of the pilot and his association with Chewbacca.