Blog

2010-05-29

The Trump Card

The best business books share some common themes: be selfish, create values, earn your way, follow your curiosity, do the work, respect the self-interest of others, dream big, plan, and act. The Trump Card illustrates this from the fresh, individual perspective of Ivanka Trump, the thoughtful and sassy businesswoman and entrepreneur. The advice is valuable, yet even more valuable is the benevolent optimism and implicit conviction that only a life of creating values is fully lived.

2010-04-04

Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged is the most complete artistic expression of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, which she called "a philosophy for living on earth" and described as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." This collection of essays in turn is the most complete, scholarly, and philosophical analysis of Atlas Shrugged. Every essay in the book revealed to me new insights on the means and justification of living a full, happy life. As with his earlier collections such as Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, Dr Mayhew has placed a feast in front of us.

2010-04-03

The Checklist Manifesto

Correctly applying knowledge to achieve a goal is not automatic; it needs attention and method. In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande describes two common obstacles to employing available knowledge and demonstrates a corrective method.

One obstacle is that we may forget to perform an important action though we desire to, know the process, and know that it is important. Through routine and boredom, or inattention to precautions, we neglect to do it, or are distracted by the complexity of a situation and lose track, or the knowledge is available to us but we cannot remember it. In such cases, a checklist quickly tells us the critical steps to take.

Airplane pilots were the early inventors of the systematic, and deliberate use of checklists to overcome errors in applying readily-available knowledge. Their efficacy has been repeatedly proved, in the remarkable safety record of modern aviation, including dramatic situations such as the successful landing by Captains Sullenberger and Skiles of an Airbus 320 after both engines were shut down by striking a flock of geese. Checklists have proved their efficacy in fields as divergent as medicine, financial analysis, and restaurant operation.

Sometimes, however, the exact process to achieve a goal is not known, though the knowledge needed to solve the puzzle and discover the process is known, but that knowledge is not all immediately available to one person, but rather parts of it are held by a number of people. In such cases, checklists again play a powerful role because, at the meta level, we do know the process: find the people who have the knowledge, consult and learn from them, and use all that information to arrive at a solution. A checklist of the issues that need to be addressed and the people to consult ensures that we actually perform the process correctly.

In contrast to a "to do" list of things that we intend to do at some point in the future, a checklist is a list of the essential steps that absolutely must not be overlooked in a particular context. Each context, such as preparing a patient for surgery, analyzing a potential investment, cooking a dish correctly, preparing a plane for takeoff, or landing a plane with dead engines, has its own checklist. Checklists are of two types: DO-CONFIRM and READ-DO. With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, appropriate for familiar tasks, performance is from memory and the checklist is used to confirm than no step was missed. A READ-DO checklist gives and verifies the steps of a less-familiar procedure

When used, checklists have reduced deaths from surgical complications by as much as 47%, allowed top businesses to deliver exceptional customer service, and helped outstanding hedge funds to make decisions with lower risk and more profit. Despite the evidence, however, many people are reluctant to use checklists — and that provides an opportunity for superior performance to those who do.

2010-02-28

How Siestas help Memory

"It has already been established that those who siesta are less likely to die of heart disease. Now, Matthew Walker and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that they probably have better memory, too. A post-prandial snooze, Dr Walker has discovered, sets the brain up for learning." (read more)

2009-08-21

Egypt and Assyria

Thanks to the prolific Scott Powell, I have nine book recommendations covering Egypt and Assyria, and now a complete booklist for Early History.

• The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt by Ian Shaw.
• The Egyptian book of the Dead by E.A. Wallis Budge. For reference only. Enter the world of the magical funerary rites of Egypt! E.A. Wallis Budge was one of the giants of Egyptology. A prolific writer, his works remain popular to this day. These works are not for young students, however. They may be useful for families looking for answers to particular questions.
• The Gods of the Egyptians by E.A. Wallis Budge. Egyptian religion varied in place and time over millenia. E.A. Wallis Budge was one of the giants of Egyptology. A prolific writer, his works remain popular to this day. These works are not for young students, however. They may be useful for families looking for answers to particular questions.
• Babylonian Life and History by E.A. Wallis Budge. Important insights into a culture from our distant past that remains far less well known than Egypt. E.A. Wallis Budge was one of the giants of Egyptology. A prolific writer, his works remain popular to this day. These works are not for young students, however. They may be useful for families looking for answers to particular questions.
• The Complete Pyramids, Solving the Ancient Mysteries by Mark Lehner. Complete diagrams and explanation of the construction, structure, and history of all of the pyramids.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh by Ludmila Zeman. An age-appropriate adaptation of the original narrative of the adventures of the Mesopotamian god-king Gilgamesh, with terrific illustrations that bring the story to life. (ages 7 to 13)
• Mesopotamia by Philip Steele, John Farndon. Fantastic visuals. Nice supplemental narratives. Includes a CD-ROM.
• Wonders of the Ancient World by Sandy Ransford, David Farris. An exploration of the wonders of the ancient world, through puzzles, games, quiz questions, facts and activities for children of seven years and upwards. There are word puzzles, picture puzzles, crosswords, and logic and maths puzzles, as well as cartoons and jokes. (ages 7 to 10)
• A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 BC by Marc Van De Mieroop. "I do not know of any other handbook of similar size that can compete with Van de Mieroop's book in philological competence, in historiographic method, and in expository clearness." Mario Liverani, in Orientalia