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Books

William Gibson

I just read a good book. It’s a collection of nonfiction articles written by fiction writer William Gibson. The book is “Distrust That Particular Flavor.”

Gibson is one of my favorite living authors. His fiction writing is about the near future and has been pretty good at conjuring up what’s just around the corner. Outside his tribe of admirers, Gibson is best known for coining the term “cyberspace.” Gibson was writing about cyberspace in 1984. Now in 2012, most people understand what you mean if you use the term.

Not known for writing nonfiction, he does a good job with it in articles and reviews collected from the past few decades. In “Distrust That Particular Flavor” Gibson shares his observations on a range of subjects from the attractive strangeness of Tokyo to the unrecognized strangeness of recordings.

For example, before epic storytelling and writing, people were forgotten within a couple of generations. Gibson points out that now, we not only can be aware of the dead but  experience them as well in a way that was until recently not possible. If a singer died and you’d never heard him, well… you never would. But now we have the ability to see and hear artists who’re gone. And we’re so used to it that we’ve forgotten how novel it is in our history. If Elvis had died 200 years ago his performances would be gone with him.

Each article in the book is followed by Gibson’s reflections on his writing and mindset when he wrote the article and what his opinion of the article is today, sort of like seeing “before and after pictures.” That’s interesting and so are the insights he shares in this collection.

 

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Books Health Ideas Opinion

If Your Luck Runs Out

Maybe this is medical week, my last post was about “hands only” CPR. But it made me think about what happens if your luck runs out. For me that would be the case of being trapped in an unresponsive body, being in a  vegetative state or anything requiring prolonged heroic efforts to keep me alive for a long time.

Have you seen the movie “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly” or read the book? It’s about a lively and successful big-time magazine editor who suffers a massive stroke and revives with a clear mind but only being able to use and control his left eyelid. It’s a great movie and a good story, but it seemed horrible. And then it turns out he dies less than two years later.

I started wondering if there’s an easy, clear “Do Not Resuscitate” medal or tattoo that medical personnel look for and would honor. I checked with a doctor I trust and here’s the answer I got “Leave a letter with your internist, plus a bracelet, with a statement of no prolonged life-sustaining treatment. And a note on your driver’s licence for organ donation is worthwhile too.” That makes sense,  saying “no prolonged treatment,” because you do want doctors to try, just not to prolong their efforts.

There’s also a connection to the blog I wrote last month about “The Secret Lives of Doctors.” It seems many doctors choose not pursue extraordinary measures to extend their own lives, opting for quality of life over quantity of life at the end of life. That’s good enough for me too.

 

 

Categories
Books Food and Drink Health

The Thread

How’d I change from a fat-fearing, carb-loving American into an avoider of most industrial food?

A short history…by twenty, I’d been a vegetarian for three years, but going to college and living in the South made it too challenging and alienating. So I started eating meat again and found myself feeling better. In college I ate a fairly common American diet of cafeteria food. After college, I pretty successfully switched to the low-fat, high-carb style of eating promoted by the American Heart Association and most other institutions.

I’ve always been active and interested in health; and about ten years ago I started hearing a few voices in the wilderness warning about the standard American diet that I’d embraced. Here’s an abbreviated thread about how the change happened in my thinking concerning how we should eat.

About eight years ago I read “The Fat Fallacy” which was written by a PhD who moved with his family to France for his advanced neuroscience study. While living in France for a couple of years, they ate the way the French traditionally have eaten, basically lots more fat and fewer processed foods. When they returned to the States they were thinner and healthier.

Then several years ago I read a book about paleolithic style eating and athletes. It was really intriguing but not compelling enough to get me to abandon the standard eating recommendations.

What really convinced me about four years ago was an interview I heard on the radio with Gary Taubes and reading his NYT article “What if It’s all Been a Big Fat Lie?” and then his book “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” It’s so thorough and well researched it’s sometimes like reading a text-book; it was a tough slog but worth it.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because I just read an interview with Gary Taubes over at the Browser.  The interview covers most of what he details in GCBC but in a more boiled down version easy to follow form. I think you’ll find it interesting, at the least.

It’s a good way to start a new way of thinking for a new year, or any time.

Categories
Books

Three Good Reads

Here’re my three favorite books from the last year or so, in alphabetical order. I don’t seek out books on “human desire” it just happens that there are two really good ones that showed up.

“A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire” by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, is an amazing book by two neuroscientists who arrived at insights into male and female desire by tracking down millions of computer searches for sexual related material. Online searches and click- throughs provided the authors with information unfiltered by the inhibitions inherent in interviews, because the data were generated in the privacy of homes and workplaces. The vast number and borderless nature of internet searches studied provided a more real picture of what people are looking for. Although it sounds academic, the book is entertaining and informative.

“Linchpin” by Seth Godin is another favorite. It’s about many aspects of modern living and decision-making disguised as a marketing and business book. Here’s a more detailed review I did earlier this year about it. Seth writes about the unique opportunies available to individuals now as business models are shifting away from favoring the factory model to favoring you if you’re ready.

I also recommended “Sex At Dawn” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha about a year ago here, if you want a more detailed review. It’s still a favorite of mine.”Sex At Dawn” explores the permanent shadow cast across our current civilized models of sex. That shadow is cast by how the authors contend that we’ve evolved, sexually, over millions of years and how different it is compared to how we’ve been behaving in the last 10,000 years or so as we started living in larger groups.

Each of these books offers fascinating insights into how we are, aren’t, or could be.

Categories
Books Ideas

What Do Men and Women Really Want?

If you’re looking for a really interesting, sexy book; I have one for you. It’s “A Billion Wicked Thoughts” by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. The subtitle is “What the world’s largest experiment reveals about human desire.”

The authors, both PhDs, used their background in computational neuroscience to get their conclusions by analyzing a billion web searches and millions of sites, videos, story sites, and personal ads.

The online and anonymous sexual behavior of more than 100 million men and women around the world provided revealing data showing patterns of sexual interests.

For people using the web, there were no outside promptings, or perceived agendas of a researcher looking over their shoulders, or inhibitions because they might be judged in some way. In past “face to face” research projects about what turns us on, many people haven’t been honest for any number of reasons.

Unguarded, online, behavioral data allows this book to provide some answers to: what truly turns us on?

 

 

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Books Ideas

Taking The Bad With The Good

In  an interview with super star designer Phillppe Starck in Wired magazine, Starck said we (humans) were the best piece of design ever. He did have one reservation though:

“Of all the animal species, we are the only ones who said, “Why don’t we rise up and better ourselves?” …Ironically, we are also responsible for the world’s worst idea — something that continues to set back scientific exploration. I’m talking about religion. Millions of people today suffer and die because some people use religion to control other people… Believing is the negation of our intelligence… “Oof, it’s not me, it’s God.” This removes any self-responsibility.”

If you’ve ever been to a malaria plagued country you might’ve wondered where god was hiding. Malaria is like a plague. It kills almost one million people each year, and most of those are kids. In 2008, the World Health Organization said 247 million people got sick from malaria. It’s a preventable disease that actually lowers a country’s gross domestic product.

That’s the bad; here’s some good. Wednesday, September 7th, was “End Malaria Day.” A book went on sale that day with all the money generated going to buy treated mosquito nets for African families.

Hang on. Don’t worry, the book isn’t about malaria and no hand wringing or pictures of small children with big bellies. The book is a compilation of  short pieces by 62 top thinkers in business today sharing their cool ideas. A day later, it’s the number one selling business title on Amazon.

I bought a copy and so far I love it. The title is “End Malaria.” All of the $20 for the Kindle edition and $20 from the $25 paperback edition goes to supply treated mosquito nets.

This is good design. It’s a win-win situation. You get both a good read and to help to potentially put a big dent in the malaria problem.

 

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Books Ideas

Information Age Ideas

I just read “Linchpin” by Seth Godin. It’s a very insightful read, blurring the lines between business, social commentary, and trends. “Linchpin” is about new business model ideas for the information age and why the old model from the industrial age isn’t working well anymore and is on the way out.

Seth is one of the most prolific bloggers and authors out there, with 12 bestselling books. And he blogs every weekday. He currently has over 4,000 short, pithy posts, and is the #1 rated blogger in the marketing field; but his posts are interesting and useful to a general reader too. It’s one of the few blogs I read daily.

Seth argues that a linchpin is someone who can invent, connect, create, and make things happen – usually in a new way; and a linchpin can’t be replaced, whether they work solo or in a company. The indispensable work of a linchpin is connected to other people, and that requires that a linchpin “ship” (release, roll out) his work or it doesn’t really count because no one will see it. Linchpins also bring their humanity to their work through their interactions and by giving gifts that build a tribe.

We all have ancient part of the brain that’s able to override the newer, higher functioning parts. This “lizard brain” is obsessed with safety, food, and reproduction and so will try to sabotage anything that feels threatening, risky, or generous. But linchpins have figured out the way around it by recognizing it and dealing with the lizard brain’s resistance.

“Consumers aren’t loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human… when customers have the choice between faceless options they pick the cheapest, fastest, more direct option.” The internet has changed things by letting the market directly distribute news from regular people talking about what the great stuff is (and also what the mediocre stuff is).

Linchpins are also artists. Art has the ability to change the way people feel and linchpins do that through their interactions, ideas, or products. “It’s not an effort contest, it’s an art contest. As consumers, we care about ourselves, about how we feel, about whether a product or service or play  or interaction changed us for the better.” Where, how, or how difficult it was to make  something isn’t relevant to most consumers; so emotional labor   becomes more valuable than physical labor because emotional labor changes the recipient and that’s what consumers really care about.

“The race to make average stuff for average people is almost over… Becoming more average, more quick, and more cheap is not as productive as it used to be.” Don’t become a cog in big system. Instead become indispensable, a linchpin, to thrive in the new economy. As Seth says “It’s easy to buy a cook book (filled with instructions to follow) but really hard to find a chef book.”

The future is here; it’s just not very evenly distributed yet.

 

Categories
Books Ideas

NYC and Coral Reefs

There’s a lot going on in NYC, never a shortage of something to do, listen to, see or eat. Here’s a clever explanation for NYC. I’ve been reading Steven Johnson’s book      “Where Good Ideas Come From.” He thinks that proportionally, many more good ideas originate in big cities like NYC than come out of smaller ones. “As cities get bigger they generate ideas at a faster clip.”

The book begins with insights from natural systems. For example, even though only .001% of the earth’s surface is covered by coral reef,  about 25% of known sea life lives on or around coral reefs. They’re concentrated, fertile areas.

Next the book points out how, usually, animal life spans increase and metabolism slows as species get bigger. A thousandfold  size increase, say from a hamster to a horse, results in a heart rate 5.5 times slower and a 5.5 times longer life for the horse. It seems most animals get about the same number of heart beats in a lifetime and the bigger an animal is, the longer it takes to use up its allocated beats. As animals become larger they become more efficient at distributing resources.

“If an elephant is just a scaled up mouse, then, from an energy perspective, a city is just a scaled up elephant… Did the “metabolism” of urban life slowdown as cities grew in size?” Looking at ideas and innovation as nutrients and metabolism, research shows a city that’s ten times larger than a town is seventeen times more innovative; and, “A metropolis fifty times bigger than a town is 130 times as innovative.” On average, a citizen of a city with  5 million people is three times more creative than his counterpart in a town of 100 thousand.

Standing back and observing fertile environments shows that “openness and connectivity may, in the end be more valuable than purely competitive mechanisms… we’re often served better by connecting ideas than protecting them.” Because good ideas “want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.” What better place to have ideas bump into each other than in a big city.

Innovation flourishes in cities. The book is about the series of shared properties and patterns showing up in very fertile places like coral reefs and NYC.

 

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Books Ideas

Good Graphics

Edward Tufte owns the world of graphics. In the mid-eighties, I read his first book “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” a few times because it was so engaging and interesting. He was a professor at Yale from 1977 until 1999 before leaving academia to successfully spread the word of good graphics to the public.

The other day I saw something about Tufte’s “sparklines”( word-sized graphics) now showing up in tweets and thought I’d post something about him. Then I ran across a profile on Tufte I liked by Joshua Yaffa in “The Washington Monthly” (via Kottke).

If you’re a Tufte fan, click on the link and read the whole profile. If you just want a taste or are short on time, here’s my excerpted version of “The Information Sage:”

Over the last three decades, he has become a kind of oracle in the growing field of data visualization—the practice of taking the sprawling, messy universe of information that makes up the quantitative backbone of everyday life and turning it into an understandable story.

For years, graphic designers were regarded as decorators, whose primary job was to dress up facts with pretty pictures. Tufte introduced a reverence for math and science to the discipline and, in turn, codified the rules that would create a new one, which has come to be called, alternatively, information design or analytical design. His is often the authoritative word on what makes a good chart or graph, and over the years his influence has changed the way places like the Wall Street Journal and NASA display data.

In the public realm, data has never been more ubiquitous—or more valuable to those who know how to use it. “If you display information the right way, anybody can be an analyst,” Tufte once told me. “Anybody can be an investigator.”

Tufte’s rise mirrors that of information itself, which has infiltrated every aspect of modern life.  Information is all around us, but so is “non-information,” the flotsam and noise that are the by-products of a hyperactively quantitative culture.

“Tufte killed the idea that we are afraid of numbers,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a typographer in New York. “And once you get over that idea, you can’t really justify the birthday-party-clown school of data visualization, where you need bright colors and shiny things to convey that the stock market went down this week.”

Tufte has coined several terms that have come to define his style, such as “data-ink ratio,” the proportion of graphical detail that does not represent statistical information, and “chartjunk,” ornamental and often saccharine design flourishes that impede understanding.

Good design, then, is not about making dull numbers somehow become magically exhilarating, it is about picking the right numbers in the first place. “It’s about data that matters to you,” said Dona Wong, a student of Tufte’s at Yale and later the graphics director at the Wall Street Journal.

Tufte introduced what he called “sparklines,” numerically dense, word-size graphics that show variation over time. As an example, the fluctuations of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the course of February and March look like this: . The dramatic dip in the figure represents the March 16th panic over the nuclear disaster in Japan.

The underlying philosophy behind sparklines—and, really, all of Tufte’s work—is that data, when presented elegantly and with respect, is not confounding but clarifying. “There is no such thing as information overload.” Tufte says “Only bad design.”

As Richard Grefe, the executive director of the American Institute of Graphic Artists, which awarded Tufte its highest medal in 2004, explained, Tufte has shifted how designers approach the job of turning information into understanding. “It’s not about making the complex simple,” Grefe told me. “It’s about making the complex clear.”

Tufte decided “to be indifferent to culture or history or time.” He became increasingly consumed with what he calls “forever knowledge,” or the idea that design is meant to guide fundamental cognitive tasks and therefore is rooted in principles that apply regardless of the material being displayed and the technology used to produce it. As Tufte explains it, basic human cognitive questions are universal, which means that design questions should be universal too.

 

 

 

Categories
Books Ideas

Helen and Scott

I was just talking to a visiting friend who’d lived in Vermont for a awhile. We got on to the subject of Helen and Scott Nearing who started homesteading in Vermont in the thirties. We were both surprised the other knew about them and we enjoyed reminiscing about what the Nearings had done in Vermont. In one of those “small world” occurrences, it turns out that the book he’d read years ago might’ve been mine. The Nearings wrote a book called “Living the Good Life” which went on to influence and inform lots of people, mostly hippies, who were interested years later, in returning to the land. Now with farmer’s markets abounding, the slow food movement, and a desire to know where your food comes from, there’s relevance again for the Nearings’ lives. I was, and still am fascinated by what they did.

The Nearings were college educated, left leaning, city folk who abandoned their big city progressive New York life in 1932 for a go at a simpler way of living and self-reliance in a very rural (depression era) Vermont. Ahead of their time, they practiced organic farming, having a small footprint, and healthy living. They  both lived to be very old, Scott died at 100 and Helen at 91. They also built their own structures out of stone from their and.

And then, they did it all over again. In 1952 they started from scratch on the coast of Maine when Scott was in his seventies(!) when they felt too much development was encroaching on their world in Vermont. In Maine they were working from experience to recreate a similar homestead there too.

More than most people, their life was an experiment, lots of trial and error. Remember, information wasn’t easily available then. But they worked hard, were nice, and it paid off. They went slowly and figured things out as they went along. They generally took a long view of the processes like building up their weak soil and constructing new buildings, taking years to complete new stone structures while they lived in the older wooden ones. They learned how to collect maple syrup to use as a cash crop, but they didn’t need too much money since they lived simply and were able grow most of the food they ate.

The book’s style is informative and interesting but the writing style is old-fashioned. Most aspects of their simple lives are detailed in their book with the exception  of sex and children, they didn’t have kids, from what I can remember. “Living the Good Life” can be read in several lights: as a primer on homesteading, as just a fascinating tale of a couple creating a new life, as a historical look at early 20th century rural life in America, or as a  record of a prototype for green living. If any or all of that sounds interesting, you’ll get a lot from the Nearings.