Amazon links for Hardcase and Hard Freeze I picked these up at the same time as Dim Sum Dead, in my failure of self restraint at the used bookstore. I like a lot of the work by Dan Simmons, and am thoroughly impressed by his exploration of so many different literary genres. These two books […]
The Passion of the Christ
I went to see Mel Gibson’s new film The Passion of the Christ over the weekend, mostly because I want to see anything that engenders this much controversy so that I can form my own opinion. Plus, the Christ story (“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever […]
Mountain vs. road biking
I went out for a bike ride this morning. My normal route these days is to head out up and over the Piedmont hill, down to Montclair, and then up Snake Road up to Skyline. This is close to an hour of climbing for me (although I’m getting better). After that, then I bike around […]
Constructing the self story
I was talking to a friend last night who passed along an interesting observation to me: that people actively seek out evidence to support their worldviews. I’ve always believed that our perceptions color our view of the world in a passive way; that we see what we expect to see. Where one person sees the […]
Dim Sum Dead : A Madeline Bean Culinary Mystery, by Jerrilyn Farmer
Amazon link I picked this up kind of randomly at the used bookstore a couple weeks ago. Why am I going to the used bookstore when I have more unread books on my floor than I have time to read? I can’t explain it either. Heck, these days, I can’t even keep up with my […]
Team building
Several of the engineers based at our parent company in Toronto came down to our San Francisco site this week to sync up with us on the project that we are collaborating on. Our project manager thought this might be a good excuse for a team building exercise. Suggestions included going bowling or ice skating, […]
The perception of safety
I really liked Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point. When a friend of mine lent me an article that Gladwell had written in the New Yorker, I went looking for it on the web and found that Gladwell publishes all of his articles on his website (that article, entitled “The Talent Myth: Are smart people […]
George Lakoff and politics
I mentioned George Lakoff in my list of links a month ago, but somebody recently forwarded me a link to this interview with him, where I got a better sense of his thinking. That page also links to this other interview, which has some really great bits. Lakoff was the guy who said frames trump […]
The Apprentice
Okay, I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve been watching The Apprentice when I happen to be home on Thursday evenings. It’s pretty fascinating to see the different strategies towards the challenges that people take; some are free-wheeling, some want to lay out a process and a plan, etc. But the thing that I […]
Links, Schminks
It’s time for another round of links. As was the case last time, these are links that I found interesting for one reason or another, but I didn’t have enough commentary to justify a full entry. Dean’s movement Mitch Ratcliffe wrote an article, suggesting that “I think the opportunity now is to establish a permanent […]
