Latest Posts

• Book of the Week: Enterprise Data Workflows with Cascading

  Enterprise Data Workflows with Cascading describes how to build big data applications with a focus on how data moves without worrying about details. The concept behind cascading reminded of the old Waterworks card game. You connect pipes together with a finite set of pieces to create a complex network bringing resources from one place to another place where it can be better used. The directed graph diagrams can be created with dot from graphivz. $ dot -Tsvg graph.dot -o graph.svg

• Book of the Week: The Affluent Society

  I read The Affluent Society by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith to find out why people are poor. The book makes a lot of points, but I was lost in the beginning when the names of a bunch of economists were thrown around. I have no idea who these people are and what ideas they have. But it doesn’t matter what they think. Even though this book was written in 1957, economic and societal considerations are similar.

• Book of the Week: The Elements of Drawing

  I found The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin through the iTunes U course. The book was published in 1857. I had to look up what india-rubber and a penknife are. The drawing instruments have have changed a little bit, but techniques haven’t. The book is divided into three letters. Drawing As a scientist, drawing is about conveying an idea to another person. As an artist, drawing is about what I want to make another feel. Leondardo da Vinici used his skills to create famous technical drawings and paintings. By reading this book, I hope to take a step toward becoming a Renaissance man. Letter I: On Practice There many exercises with explantations of their purpose. The goal is have control of your hand and work on seeing different parts of the world. The practice gives you tools, so you can draw. Drawing is not just reproducting what you see. Letter II: Sketching from Nature

• Book of the Week: Beige Book

  I heard about the Beige Book from NPR. Beige Book The Beige Book is published 8 times a year by the Federal Reserve to summarize economic conditions in each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts.

• Book of the Week: Theory of Blackjack

  This book details the mathematics behind blackjack with appendices on how the tables are calculated. Beat the Dealer was a good start. The Theory of Blackjack is what I need to write software to study blackjack. Purchase The Theory of Blackjack on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.

• Book of the Week: Beat the Dealer

  A This American Life episode about Blackjack inspired me to read Beat the Dealer by Edward O Thorp. The first edition of this book brought card counting the masses. This edition details the developments after the first edition. Blackjack Blackjack is the only casino game where you can statistically beat the casino. I thought analyzing blackjack would be easy, but there are variations in rules concerning soft hands, doubling down, insurance, splitting, etc. Each casino has different rules, which can make some casinos more favorable to play at than others. Beating the Dealer Information gained by keeping track of played cards lets you know when you have a statistical advantage. The problem is how to keep track of played cards. One way is to assign points values to each card and keep a running sum. As you get to the end of the deck, you become more certainty about the remaining cards. Play can be broken down into 3 levels.

• Book of the Week: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey is a popular book. It is not a book you can read quickly and hope to gain anything from it. Habits take conscious effort and time to develop. I was turned off by the book in the beginning, because it was very preachy. It is a book written for managers who aren’t very good at being managers. If you’re good, then you already have these habits. If your manager sucks, then I suggest this book as a gift. Purchase The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.

• Book of the Week: Little Bets

  Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries by Peter Sims discusses how to achieve greatness by starting with little bets. I didn’t know that the Google PageRank algorithm was originally designed for the Stanford Digital Library Project. It was mentioned as an alternative to the h-index when I was reading about measuring quality of research. No wonder, it was what it was designed for that in the first place. Once something becomes big, you forget that it once started out as something small. Making Bets Bets are a way of getting information, because you have no clue. The more bets you make, the more information you can obtain and the better decisions you can make.

• Book of the Week: Setting up a Tropical Aquarium Week by Week

  Reading Setting up a Tropical Aquarium Week by Week, made me think about whether we need books like this anymore. I can read whatever Google shows me about tropical aquariums. Before the internet, if I wanted to learn about tropical aquariums I would have to ask people with tropical aquariums or read books. What I appreciated about the book was that it had lots of pictures with information presented in a logical order. What was lacking was the ability to dive deeper into a topic. The problem with the internet is that there is tons of information, but it is in bits and pieces with some of the information conflicting. It is difficult to aggregate and curate information on the internet. The Aquarium Wiki is good for reference, but not a good introduction. Tropical Fish - A Beginner’s Guide is a community effort to organize information into an ebook. The ebook wins on content, but loses in presentation since it lacks design and layout. If I want to read about another topic it might not have a community-generated ebook. The internet is missing an easy aggregation and presentation layer. Purchase Setting up a Tropical Aquarium Week by Week on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.

• Book of the Week: Where Good Ideas Come From

  Before I have something to market, I need a good idea. To tackle this problem, I turn to Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Johnson discusses 7 patterns that emerged from studying innovation. To save you the time from reading the book, I refer you to a 5 minute youtube video on the subject. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&w;=560&h;=315] The 7 patterns are the adjacent possible, liquid networks, the slow hunch, serendipity, error, exaptation and platforms. The adjacent possible is why scientist have independently made the same discoveries around same time. The world was ready for the innovation since the framework for it was built. Innovation and creativity is about connecting stuff together. You get a bunch of stuff, some of it good, some of it bad and mix it a bit. It stews and suddenly something triggers and you have a good idea. Johnson makes the argument that cities speed up innovation, because they have enough density to allow for interactions that lead to innovation. Is there an optimal density of people to have? Instead of reading about where ideas come from, how about generating your own good ideas with design thinking. Purchase Where Good Ideas Come From on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.

• Book of the Week: Purple Cow

  Purple Cow is for the marketing people who were left out of the startup world. The business people read Crossing the Chasm. The Innovator’s Dilemma was a good read for the engineers. These books are all about taking the first step toward creating a remarkable, innovative company. Traditionally hiring marketing and sales people come later. As a founder, you need to go out and do the marketing and sales in the beginning to learn about your customer. Those who hire people to do those roles at the onset are doomed to failure. I would read Crossing the Chasm first.

• Book of the Week: The $100 Startup