- Went to Ignite Seattle with K&J. Interesting approach, where each speaker has 20 slides that they can show for 15 seconds each, resulting in a 5-minute presentation. It was crowded but turned out okay.
- Started alpha-testing J's new book site, Bookton.
- Regarding the couple items I had left to do from my last post, I did replace the few regular light bulbs in my house that remain on for any real length of time with CFLs, but I did not get a low-flow shower head. So, I went 1-1 there. I don't like to lose, so I will go look for one tomorrow.
- I was thinking it would be nice to volunteer once a month this year, but I didn't volunteer last month. I was avoiding volunteering for Seattle Park and Rec again because it seems like the easy way out to just default to a place that I can go to at the last minute with no advanced planning. Then again, the couple times I started to look, I couldn't find anything I wanted to do. I'm going to modify my goal. I'd like to average one volunteer event per month this year. So, now I'm behind and need to catch up.
- I have stopped reading RSS feeds on a daily basis. There are certain activities that I engage in every once and a while that have a really low value-to-time-consumed ratio, and reading feeds regularly is one of them. I try to avoid these things when I become aware of them, so, at least for now, regular feed reading is out. I still check certain (usually low-volume) feeds on occasion, though.
- Finished a book: I enjoyed it. It's a collection of essays, and I especially liked an essay called, "We Need Less School, Not More," wherein the author talks about, among other things, the difference between networks and communities. It really resonated with me. I've tended to avoid networks because they've usually not felt "good," and I think the author does a great job of identifying just why that might be.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Sunday, March 4, 2007
February In Review
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Books, Geography, Basketball, Movies, Todo
We won our last basketball game and lost the one before that, bringing us to 4-4. Both were good games for me. Last game, I jumped out of bounds to save the ball, throwing it backwards in the hope that the ball would end up the hands of my team, only to hit one of my teammates in the face and give her a bloody nose. I felt terrible =( It wasn't broken, though, so that's good.
I had to return a book to the library last week before I finished it, making it the second of its kind in as many months. I put another hold on it, but it could be months before it gets back to me. I might have to go finish it at Barnes and Noble or something. In a way, maybe it was a good thing because I won't write about it until I finish it, and I want to start linking my book posts to J's new book site that isn't quite ready for release yet. Hurry, J!
I've been slowly learning more geography. After learning all the countries on all the continents, I've moved on to European capitals and mostly have them down. I used to run through a study list a few times a week when I was learning countries, but I haven't been doing that recently. I need to get into that habit again. As with countries, I'll do African capitals last; maybe I'll learn Asian capitals next. I need to remember to continue reviewing everything I've learned so far, too.
Over the last week or so, I watched The Illusionist and Pan's Labyrinth. Both were good, though the latter was less about the labyrinth than I originally thought it would be and wasn't about Pan at all.
I have a growing list of things that need to be done. The fairly recent wind storm damaged various sections of the fence around my yard, so I need to deal with that. The fence was poorly made to begin with, so some of the options are: build a new fence all together (expensive), fix the sections that were damaged (less expensive but then I've still got a crappy fence), or get rid of the fence and use some sort of greenery to act as a barrier. Some time this year, I also want to look into replacing at least some of my carpet and re-painting my house. J mentioned pergo as an alternative to carpet, so I'll look into that, too. I need to figure out where to volunteer next, as well. Well? Get to it!
I had to return a book to the library last week before I finished it, making it the second of its kind in as many months. I put another hold on it, but it could be months before it gets back to me. I might have to go finish it at Barnes and Noble or something. In a way, maybe it was a good thing because I won't write about it until I finish it, and I want to start linking my book posts to J's new book site that isn't quite ready for release yet. Hurry, J!
I've been slowly learning more geography. After learning all the countries on all the continents, I've moved on to European capitals and mostly have them down. I used to run through a study list a few times a week when I was learning countries, but I haven't been doing that recently. I need to get into that habit again. As with countries, I'll do African capitals last; maybe I'll learn Asian capitals next. I need to remember to continue reviewing everything I've learned so far, too.
Over the last week or so, I watched The Illusionist and Pan's Labyrinth. Both were good, though the latter was less about the labyrinth than I originally thought it would be and wasn't about Pan at all.
I have a growing list of things that need to be done. The fairly recent wind storm damaged various sections of the fence around my yard, so I need to deal with that. The fence was poorly made to begin with, so some of the options are: build a new fence all together (expensive), fix the sections that were damaged (less expensive but then I've still got a crappy fence), or get rid of the fence and use some sort of greenery to act as a barrier. Some time this year, I also want to look into replacing at least some of my carpet and re-painting my house. J mentioned pergo as an alternative to carpet, so I'll look into that, too. I need to figure out where to volunteer next, as well. Well? Get to it!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Book: Softwar
[ Mini-rant: Amazon.com provides members of their Affiliate Program with the ability to create "Product Links," which consist of a picture of and link to an item on Amazon.com, the title, and the current price. Members then get a cut of any revenue generated from sales resulting from someone following that link. I'm not an Amazon affiliate, nor do I care to be. But why, oh why, do they not provide me with the ability to easily create a similar link? Earth to Amazon! Just like one of your affiliates, I want to drive traffic to your site. The only difference is, I want to let you keep the share of revenue you'd normally give to an affiliate. Without a "link to this item" button on all your product pages, you're making it harder for me to send people to your site. I have to manually create a link to a vanilla cover of the book that's the right size and link it back to amazon.com. I know I'm not the only one that does this; fix it! ]
I just finished reading Softwar, which is sort of an unofficial biography of Larry Ellison and Oracle, the software company he founded in 1977. It contained a lot of Larry's perspective on the history of his company (probably around 75-100 combined pages of sizable quotations from him), which I found to be pretty interesting. Larry was able to respond to the author's perspective with footnotes, which added nicely to the experience. He was very straight-forward in his comments about previous decisions he made and whether in retrospect he thinks they were right or wrong. He bet (what was probably) the entire future of his company, usually in the form of a complete re-write of their main product, on his vision of the state of the industry a number of times and came out ahead for it. It also covers some of his sailing experiences, including his involvement in the America's Cup and his experience sailing into the eye of a hurricane in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
Larry has a reputation of being a real jerk, but I came away from the book with a lot of respect for him. I think it's easy to confuse uncompromising determination and an almost infinite desire to win with being mean, and in this book, I thought he came off as being the former and not the latter. Overall, a good book.
I just finished reading Softwar, which is sort of an unofficial biography of Larry Ellison and Oracle, the software company he founded in 1977. It contained a lot of Larry's perspective on the history of his company (probably around 75-100 combined pages of sizable quotations from him), which I found to be pretty interesting. Larry was able to respond to the author's perspective with footnotes, which added nicely to the experience. He was very straight-forward in his comments about previous decisions he made and whether in retrospect he thinks they were right or wrong. He bet (what was probably) the entire future of his company, usually in the form of a complete re-write of their main product, on his vision of the state of the industry a number of times and came out ahead for it. It also covers some of his sailing experiences, including his involvement in the America's Cup and his experience sailing into the eye of a hurricane in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
Larry has a reputation of being a real jerk, but I came away from the book with a lot of respect for him. I think it's easy to confuse uncompromising determination and an almost infinite desire to win with being mean, and in this book, I thought he came off as being the former and not the latter. Overall, a good book.
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