Bryson’s Shakespeare: of genius and confabulations

The Dutch subtitle of Bill Bryson’s book Shakespeare is “Een biografie” (A Biography). I read the book and found this subtitle misplaced.

The subtitle of the english original is “The World as a Stage”.  How does that translate to “Een biografie”?bryson shakespeare nl

Bryson writes right in the beginning of the book that very little is known about Shakespeare. So little, that you realistically can not expect more from a book about Shakespeare than the description of a handful of meagre facts, augmented with assumptions, phantasies and preliminary conclusions about the life and times Shakespeare.

Bryson even admits this is the reason the book has such a modest modest size.shakespears_bryson-en

Austin Kleon and Johnny Rotten: a desire to constantly evolve

I hate self-promotion.

To start with the same introduction that Austin Kleon uses at the beginning of his book Show Your Work.

I just read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a book that I had to let go of. I could not consume these elaborations on his simplified way of life any longer. However, I found his worldview interesting. I also liked the way he exchanges philosophical elaborations with down-to-earth statistics and lists of stuff he bought and sold for his house or from his gardening.

But Show Your Work reads very well. It is practical and motivational.

And the conclusion: Do The Work. This keeps coming back so often. Pressfield wrote a book about it. Get the fuck out of their chair. Start typing.

Kleon takes the myth out of most things. Everything is basically common sense. Don’t bullshit. Find an easy way of sharing work.

Do not do networking, but let the network do the work while you add value to your network.

The amateur is king: the amateur is not afraid to do things a new way, another way than the established professionals.

Naivety = openness to new things.

“Watching amateurs at work can also inspire us to attempt the work ourselves. “I saw the Sex Pistols,” said New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. ‘They were terrible. . . . I wanted to get up and be terrible with them.’ Raw enthusiasm is contagious.”

Interesting, as Johnny Rotten/Lydon has always referred to punk as a similar notion:

“Punk is a state of mind open to new ideas, with a desire to constantly evolve, to find the next step, not only in music but also in the world around us.”

Full article (and the french original article): Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten On The Real Meaning Of Punk

“I constantly try to deliver this message: “Admire someone’s work, but don’t imitate it, don’t lose your personality.”

Kleon is a Buddhist, I think. He writes:

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

Some time go I read Buddhism for Dummies, Jonathan Landaw, Stephan Bodian, and Gudrun Bühnemann:

“Buddhism has always considered death to be one of the most powerful teachers, but this doesn’t make it a joyless or life-denying religion. Buddhism simply acknowledges that death has an unparalleled capacity to force you to look deeply into your own heart and mind and recognize what really matters.”

Kleon later on expresses:

“The experience of shaping the work is what matters”

Klein does bother about sharing his knowledge and experience with competitors. He knows his value. He even put it stronger as a competitive advantage:

“Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it.”

The rich mindset, the idea muscle and on-the-side-business

the rich employee

A whole book in James Altucher’s typical style. 

Packed. Informative. Entertaining. A little chaotic. Jumping quickly between styles, digressing, then getting back on track. Interlaced with stories illustrating his points.

Do expect the “rich” in the title to be taken literally. Although the book offers monetary advice, the “rich” mostly relates to a mindset.

And it is not just aimed at employees either.

Typical James. Very commercially smart title to broaden the audience for the book. It suggests richness is also achievable for the employees. And of course there are many more employees than non-employees (probably implying entrepreneurs). And these employees are craving to be rich. In many ways.

antifragile

I am thinking how you would summarize his main idea. Independence comes to mind. Make yourself independent from your employer. Make your value independent from where you work. Make sure you have plan B and C. Prepare for disaster.
Become antifragile, comes to mind (Nassim Taleb).

Even become independent of your own streams of thought, I mean do not let them dominate you. Get on top of them.
That is probably a very buddhist idea

If you have read James’ post you may have seen a lot of the content already.

Start a business on the side.

Influence - cialdini

Refers to Cialdini a couple of times. Read that one some time ago. Influence. Recommend that too.

Read about this idea muscle, how important it is to train it. And then how lazy i am writing down the stuff racing through my mind during the day. Ideas I then forget because I don not write them down. I think starting to even write down ideas you have even how stupid they may sound is a great idea.

One of these is an idea for an internet media company. Any media but video. Well, also video, but not just. Podcasts, radio, whatever.
I do not understand why cable companies do not heavily invest in this. The carrier is commodity. Content is king. That is what they said in 2000 about the internet, refering to web sites, when the carier was still important (or rather: limited. It was important because badnwidth was so scarce). And today it is even more true, now all deregulation of cables has been realised. Sorry, I mean with the disappearance of the big state owned telephone / cable companies.
That was one of my ideas today.
It probably exists already, but I am too lazy to go find out now.

Another idea, for Amazon kindle. You can put books purchased elsewhere on your Kindle (using Calibre for that great stuff), but notes will not be sync-ed with your kindle.amazon.com. Provide it. I guess it is a stupid measure to make sure you purchase your books on amazon. Is there already a service extracting notes from your kindle? O I googled and found Calibre might be able to. Will check that out.

Another one: be able to search books and add to wishlist from Kindle.

Another one: integration with Evernote (typing this in evernote).

James tosses the idea of choose yourself meetups. Chooseyourself.me. AA type gatherings. Might work, but definitely not for me. Nor James I am sure. Too shy.

References in the back great: to Fedora training creation – O now I have a new business idea for courses. I can turn any business problem from my job, generalise it and create a (micro) course out of it. In the media company too? Was just talking to my wife last night how out of date the current system for higher education is, with all the new media courses (for free) coming online.

That’s it.

Nice read.

The Monk and The Riddle and Rework and others

monk-and-riddle

The one is more imperative the other more loose.

Both are No BS.

I read The Monk and The Riddle and then Rework shortly after eachother.

The Monk etc is a great book about how startups really work. From the mouth of a top advisor of VCs in Silicon Valley. That sounds strong and confident and so is the book.
Illustrated with great real life example and stories around that – funeral.com, the Amazon of funeral goods, for heaven’s sake…
Talks about the business side, but also discusses the need for a vision the founders need on what they want the startup to achieve.

Rework

What are investors really look for. For them your business plan is one in very many.

Is there a big market? Can the product win and defend a large share? (Peter Thiel – look for a monopoly in Zero to One). Can the team do the job?

They are looking for passion. Money should not be the driver. Passion should.

Make plans, but don’t assume you can stick to them for very long. Be flexible. Also the investors should recognize this.

“In a Brave New World startup, there’s no existing market, no incumbent competitors, and no economic model, you’re literally investing the business as you go along.”

I take that opportunity to link to Fried and Heineman say in Rework – a plan is ok but it is all guesswork, they say, so do not worry too much if it needs changing; actually expect it to change (or you would be psychic).

Jason Fried and David Heineman Hansson are furthermore a lot less stern but and take a more relaxed standpoint. But they are from the other side of the table.

Their book has a number of nice bangs:
Learning from mistakes is overrated. I like that one against the “fail fast” silicon valley hype.
Do it for yourself – ignore the world (Ignore Everybody from Hugh Macleod).
Do not listen to your customer they do not know either (read Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma“).
Working too hard is stupid.
Small is fine – big not an objective.
Entrepreneur, a word that it sounds like a members-only club.

I like that.

Very practical no-nonsense advice.
In short: don’t bullshit around, do the work (Do The Work – Steven Pressfield).

Both very informative, funny. Read like a novel.

Tony Robbins, an abundance of words

Money Master the Game

Tony Robbins, Money Master the Game. A big book on personal finance from a big hyperactive guy.

The first time I saw him was at TED. I thought he was a kind of Schwarzenegger, but talking way faster.

And that voice. Scared me like hell.

Then Tim Ferriss interviewed him for his podcast. What are these rules he promised in Tim Ferriss’ interview. Well, mmm. But I decided to read this book after the interview.

The introduction is lengthy. Very lengthy. And so many “I”’s … I thought this was full of himself. (Still do, after having read the book.)

Oh, then I read he does this on purpose, this repetition and long-windedness: it’s his method. Irritating, was my first impression, but I read on, it might work.

It does make the book readable and lively.

But it goes on. So much repetition… but also lots of valuable information for the layman looking invest for his pension.

Undressing complicated investment products. Use a cheap index fund instead. Or a simple and cheap annuity, which is investing in an index fund.

Then it gets somewhat technical and very US oriented talking about the 401(k) pension rules.

I am skipping pages.

The book not only covers investment improvements, and advice on tax. More importantly, good savings advice. Where to cut costs.

And the big big secret that Tony drags you with through a number of chapters: invest in a diversified set of portfolio, comprising domestic and international stocks, real estate and treasuries.

Some interesting numbers for the layman, actually basic math. If your investment grows 10% annually, the money will have doubled in 7.2 years. If 5%, it is still 14.4 years. Simple things like that give you another view on saving.

Of course, we want stuff now. Therefore the idea to save salary increases instead of just adding them to your salary is a good one. Hope my wife agrees.

The abundance of words continues to make the book hard to read. Information density is so low. It keeps going on and repeating the message. But I  admit: it makes me shift my view on a money machine, as Tony calls it. And the calculations grounding the machine.

Then I am done with it. I skimmed through the last chapters. Interesting, but the abundance is nauseating, and the material is too US-oriented.

We should have something like this for every country or for Europe, but we don’t have a Tony. If we get one, I hope he is a bit more concise.

12 tomorrows from 2014

I ordered Twelve Tomorrows. I never really liked science fiction (excTwelve Tomorrows 2014eptions like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – not even sure even that would qualify for science fiction). But I wanted re-evaluate my taste.

The twelve futures in summary:

  1. Instead of getting electronic detention, limiting the freedom of movement, persistent criminals are blinded. as a replacement for their natural eyesight they get electronic glasses through which they can only observe a pre-filtered reality. In this augmented reality, criminals are tagged, or branded, and everyone can see these brands as a warning sign.
  2. Biological modification of humans, first under “acupuncture anesthesia”, then in next generations through DNA modification.
  3. Cybercrime 22h century. Electronically (remotely) scanning a person’s digital identity information to get access to a bank account.
  4. Genetically manipulated life forms start leading their own life and thus become a threat to human life.
  5. Modification of human behavior through electronics implants in the human brain, also allowing remote control over a person.
  6. Human life has moved into space, to other planet amongst which Mars and the Moon. Technology like human hibernation made possible.  (A bit of 2001 A Space Odyssee, hmm).
  7. The internet of stuff, a second internet smart devices, unregulated and avoiding dictatorial suppression (already exists).
  8. Cyborg man is synthesized with his intelligent leg and can survive his body. His personality is transferred to another computer by the soul of the leg.
  9. Man cures from a hyperactive damaged brain, chemical drugs (SMOOTH  TM) is surpassed by a nanotechnology that can enter the body through the skin when wearing a medical t-shirt.
  10. Talented, intelligent young girl in Afghan invents a new kind of semiconductor in a repressive Afghan society.
  11. Internet surveillance in hyperconnected world. Secret services can follow everything you see, through your eyes, extract experiences and take over control. Everybody is under this kind of surveillance.
  12. Gene modification aimed at producing fossil gas, turns out to thrive also in the human body. But not for long, people start exploding

I found it difficult to get through the stories. Most of them sketch a dark, unpleasant future. I am trying to understand why that is. Is it because we generally tend to expect the worst of the future? Or is it maybe simply because of the dramatic needs for a story or book. Also, the science factor was not very original, and the writing not very good.

If you like Science Fiction advanced, find the very latest on MIT’s twelve tomorrows web site.

I decided to not touch Science Fiction for some time.
While I got Frank Schatzing’s Limit as a present. More on that later. That’s a 1000+ pages book.

How I found Sei Shonagon and Pieter Steinz’ wordpress blog in the process

Not sure where I heard about Sei Shonagon first, but for sure the reason to go look for the works of this writer was a list or a book by Pieter Steinz (I do not believe that only now, while I am writing this blog post, I found his wordpress blog).

I found a second hand edition of Het Hoofdkussenboek / The Pillow Book on Marktplaats and within a few days the book arrived and I could undo it from it’s tightly wrapped cover of newspaper and brown tape.

The book immediately reminded me of the atmosphere that Cees Nooteboom creates in his writing on his travels through Japan (Van de lente de dauw / there is no english translation ?!), and the feel from the pictures of artists like Hokusai.

Shonagon sketches a unique image of the life of Japanese aristocracy in the 10th century. The book inspires you to take your notebook and go walk around and document everything that’s happening around you, and realize nothing is really as self-evident and mundane as you think when you are in the middle of it every day.

Metamagical Themas reread

Some time ago I wrote I was re-reading  ‘Metamagical Themas‘ from Douglas R. Hofstadter.

The last chapter of the book discusses the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and continues to reason basically how (super)rationalist reasoning would lead to better decisions, and ultimately a better world. Hofstadter applies his ideas to the cold war reality of those days (1980 thru 1984).

The text is wonderfully bright and one can only agree with him, but … as Hofstadter tells us, this is only true in the ‘iterated’ case, meaning consistent rational behavior pays off to everyone in the long term! I strongly believe self-enrichment, egotism, and other human vices, are all non-rational behaviors aiming at short-term satisfaction. Thus standing in the way of Doug’s better world. Anyway, these quality of the essays is outstanding and I found Hofstadter’s idealism still incredibly inspiring.

Kitten Clone and the Engineer’s Lost Soul

Coupland’s Kitten Clone is written in Coupland’s sort of nonchalant style. Entertaining and ironic, without giving the impression of not being serious. And it has a few typical nerdy typographical jokes like making a paragraph brake with

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This very well written documentary (leave that up to Coupland), is beautifully illustrated with photo’s from Olivia Arthur, a famous Magnum photographer. A piece of art, this book. Coupland documents his thoughts as he travels over the globe, interviewing staff from the company Alcatel-Lucent, one of the few organizations providing the backbone technology for the Internet. Without this technology and maybe without this company our (cyber) lives would look quite different.

With Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine (“the original nerd epic”), I will add ano my earlier post on Kidder’s book here, and Coupland’s own JPod, one of the best books on the soul of engineers.

Kitten Clone is the most analytical and philosophical.

The zeitgeist of the twenty-first century is that we have a lot of zeit but not much geist. I’m appalled I just wrote that sentences, but it’s true;
there’s something emotionally sparse about the present era, and the world just keeps spinning faster and faster. Optical fibres carry forty billion phone calls at once, and soon ten terabits. And I want my Dexter, Season 4, and I want it now, and that’s what’s driving all of this: we want it and we want it now. And on top of that, it sort of feels like we’re all being chased by monsters.

I found the formulation smelling a bit like cultural pessimism, and it feels like every generation has developed this sort of fatigue. However this feeling of this ever increasing speed of need I definitely share, but still I am not convinced this may be a generational gap. And Coupland not just wonders what all this speed is necessary for. This company is mostly invisible to the public, while their product is so fundamentally changing society. It does continue to improve their technology, without seemingly wondering what this technology really enables.

“All of the scientists I spoke with were almost endearingly surprised even to be asked the question of how people will use what they invent.

And while the company does not bother much about the application of their technology, the people using their product create a complete new reality with it.

Right now, half of humanity – the younger half – believes the Internet is the reality.

This lack of apparent self reflection from the this technology company as well as from the people using their stuff, is what Coupland seems to fear most. And with that the conclusion of this documentary story is positive and alarming at the same time. Possibilities of people connecting globally are developing at an increasing speed, but this seems to develop on itself and there is a no grand plan, vision or idea guiding this advancement. Coupland for a moment even longs for religion.

What Is The What at Foyles Southbank

what is the what

One evening I was walking along the south bank of the Thames . Joggers, skateboarders, tourists and bussinessmen and women were trying to push me off the Thames Path.

At Foyles, the book shop on the south bank of the Thames, I stumbled in and browsed through

the shelves. I was surprised to find a new title from Dave Eggers, unknown to me until that moment: What Is The What.

I had read Moses Isegawa’s Abyssinian Chronicles and that is an incredible book, and when I had read a page in the shop, I was sold and bought the book for an amazing price of £13.

abyssinian chronicles

At the counter, the assistent (what do you call a person behind the counter in a bookshop) told me he had ordered only 10 copies because the book was not officially announced in the UK, or so. He complimented me on my choice and said half of the London underground literary books junks would now envy me.

I asked him what the street value of the book might be then; he said it could well be £50. I told him I’d give it a try then, after I finished reading it.

reading like a writer

No news that What Is The What is a incredibly great book (review by Francine Prose). I finished it in 2 days and probably could have sold it  for the amount if I would have hustled with one of the Eggers’ addicts. But I am too lazy for that – or probably do not need the money badly enough.

I looked online to read that book review by Francine Prose. It reminded me to finish her book Reading Like a Writer. I started off reading that enthusiastically but got distracted by some novels I was reading at the same time. Reading Like a Writer to me started off as a good book though so I will finish it. (I mean it is not of the category “book that does not hold my attention so not going to spend more time on it” (yet).)

Maybe more on that later.