5 elements of effective thinking

Self help books in general are quick-fix fantasy or common sense or at best some interesting sociological insight.  They are almost never actionable, applicable, effective, or truly life-changing. Sometimes they can be helpful or entertaining.  The title of this one had it buried in my reading stack but when it popped up this time after I finished To Kill A Mocking Bird I started reading it in the plane on the way back from San Jose. I could not put it down!  It is fantastic, entertaining, dense, insightful, prescriptive, and fun.  I plan to socialize it privately among other leaders in my teams and in my division.  We can celebrate failure, learn from failures, build on failures, and force ourselves to get better by failing.  Right after finishing the book I pounded out a long, bad draft specification  and it's getting better each time I edit it.  5/5 stars, highly recommended.

To Kill A Mocking Bird

I had not re-read Harper's classic since I was 12 and had to read it for school.  The book is fantastic and everyone should read it again after they are 35 years old. 5/5 stars.

January Dancer

Fantastic!  5/5 stars.  Great literature and great space opera.

Glassland

Terrible 0/5 stars.  Extremely boring.

Steve Jobs

Disappointing.  The film is a thin slice of an esoteric, minor part of Jobs' greater-than-life story. Barely worth watching, 3/5 stars.

Spotlight

4/5 Stars.  Extremely well-acted, great dialog, pacing, production.  Don't miss this one.

Against A Dark Background

The "Culture" space opera writer has written a non-culture book with non-stop combat action but I found the motivations and story line a little incoherent.  The military combat action was thrilling but I really didn't like the main character and therefore could not identify with her.  So I recommend reading something else.  2/5 Stars.

Jordan and Lebanon have suddenly new Demographics

Some remarkable demographics statistics in Jordan and Lebanon are illuminated in this fascinating article today.

Following in the tradition of all Hashemite kings, King Abdulla of Jordan systematically persecuted the Palestinians in Jordan from 2004 to 2008.  Perceiving the Palestinians as a violent majority, king Abdulla purged  the Jordanian armed forces of  Palestinians, revoked citizenship of "several thousand," and threatened to revoke citizenship of 350,000.   But the "Palestinian problem" in Jordan is no longer relevant because of the massive migrations coming out of the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars.  (Side note:  George W Bush caused the Iraqi migration and Barack Hussein Obama caused the Syrian migration.)

The majority of Jordan's population growth in 2003 - 2004 came from Iraqis fleeing the US invasion (1.6 million refugees).  The near-doubling of Jordan's population since then are Syrians migrating to Jordan to flee the Syrian civil war. The point of the article is that our perception of demographics is completely different from the current reality.  Jordan has suddenly become another Sunni majority Arab state.  

Lebanon is just as bad -- migrating Syrians already comprise over 25% of Lebanon's population. Again, the majority of these former-Syrians in Lebanon are Sunni and they are fighting Shia Hezbollah all across Lebanon.

Looking forward a few months to the spring of 2016, what could possibly go wrong?

The Last Colony

The books in Scalzi's "old man's war" series became boring despite the interesting plot twists and political intrigues.  The politics are excellent but the awe and wonder space opera has worn off.  If you are not already deep into the series, miss this one 2/5 stars.

River out of Eden

 

Fantastic! 4/5 stars.  Succinct, cogent.

The Challenger

Another boxing movie with the same plot as all the other "Rocky" movies.  2/5 stars.  Very predictable.

Experimentor

Stanley Milgram and his famous experiment illuminating the darkness of our nature that no one wants to know.  Denied tenure, Milgram struggled to continue his fantastic science under the tyranny of academic political correctness.  Great chronicle, 4/5 stars.  Catch it on second run but don't miss it.

FOSDEM-2016

FOSDEM-16  is over and the talks / videos are starting to appear.

Matt Bostock has posted his notes:

Day 1
Day 2  (mostly Go language stuff)