Ramblings of a Luddite Geek: books

Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Monday, August 25, 2008

Follow Up to "Career Doldrums"

Just a quick follow up to my previous post.

I was a bit unfair in saying that the book advises you to deal with doldrums by changing careers. That's not all it does. It's also great confidence booster, especially for baby boomers who are worried that they're too old to find a new job.

It explains the differences among the Baby Boom, Gen X and the latest generation (Gen Y. See Wikipedia's List of Generations for generation definitions.) This comparison serves as a foundation to convince the baby boomer that his/her contribution at a new company will be valued. Gen Y wants immediate gratification and frequent rewards, but Baby Boomers don't need that. Gen Y doesn't want to waste time giving their boss progress reports -- they just want to dive in to the work and finish it as quickly as possible.

The generational comparisons also help older workers understand their younger bosses, who come in to the workplace and turn it up-side-down.

So I found it interesting. And it ultimately helped me understand that I might be better off staying where I am.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Resources from the "Career Doldrums" Book

I finally got around to reading "Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired", which I mentioned in my January 17 post, "Book Recommendations From CareerBuilder.com".

Basically, the Escape involves switching careers. This involves making extreme financial sacrifices and tapping into a vast store of retirement savings. The assumption is that you've already raised your child(ren) and he/she/they've somehow managed to become self-sufficient. For some reason, the book didn't mention playing the lottery.

This is not a book written for my generation.

Anyway, I wanted to record some of the online resources that the book offers:

www.engineeringjobs.com

Occupational Outlook Handbook -- www.bls.gov

www.hotjobs.com

www.jobbankusa.com

www.computerwork.com

www.computerjobs.com

www.dice.com

www.justtechjobs.com

Philanthropy News Digest -- news regarding fundraising and establishing a foundation.
www.foundationcenter.org/pnd

www.idealist.org

www.nonprofitoyster.com

Self Employment

www.betheboss.com

www.money.cnn.com

www.wibo.org "Boot camp" for entrepreneurs.

www.franchise1.com

www.smartbiz.com

www.sbaonline.sba.gov

Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Social Networks for Book Lovers

I just learned about LibraryThing from reading Sacha Chua's blog post, "Taking book notes." LibraryThing is a social network for book lovers.

The general idea is that you enter books into your library by searching for a title or ISBN. There's also an import tool that will scan a webpage and pull in the ISBNs it can recognize. I used this to import the 106 books that were referenced on my "List of Books I've Read Recently," which I might decide to replace with some references to my library on LibraryThing.

Once you have books in your library, LibraryThing will provide links to profiles of users that have many of the same books in their libraries. You can navigate to their libraries and leave comments on their profiles.

Well, that's just a brief overview. Check out LibraryThing for yourself.

For a more in-depth discussion of LibraryThing and other such sites, check out NPR's All Things Considered discussion of social networks for book lovers.

Friday, May 16, 2008

MySpace Notes

My pre-teen daughter already has a website and just started a blog. So I figured I should start learning more about MySpace. She's not on MySpace right now, but she might be in a few years.

I've just finished reading "Me, MySpace, and I," by Larry D. Rosen. It suggests that parents open an account on MySpace because there are many areas on the website that you can't access unless you're logged in.

Many websites require users to provide a real name and real address when you open an account. This is particularly true of commerce sites like Amazon.com. So I was not alarmed when MySpace asked for my real name and town, "so other members can search for you." It assured me that it wouldn't display my name, but I cautiously provided a bogus name, anyway.

When I finished entering the required information, it showed me the profile page that it created for me. And there was the bogus name and town displayed in nice bold type. Thanks for preserving my anonymity, MySpace.

Well, anyway, I'm there now, and no harm was done to me.

Some things from the book I thought worth mentioning. This quote, for example:

"Some MySpace young people have told me that they like to pretend to be dumb just to see what other people do and say. One guy got a date with a girl by pretending to be a "C" student and when she met him and found out he was a "brain" she canceled the date."

- page 70

Check out http://www.ypulse.com for trends in the lives of tweens, teens and young adults.

Other resources:

http://www.isafe.org
http://www.parenthood.com
http://www.allianceforchildhood.net
http://www.kids.getnetwise.org
http://www.cybersmart.org
http://www.netsmartz.org
http://www.besafe.com
http://www.protectkids.com
http://www.webwisekids.com
http://www.internetbehavior.com
http://www.safeteens.com
http://www.blogsafely.com
http://www.commonsensemedia.com
http://www.safefamilies.org
http://www.wiredsafety.org
http://www.netfamilynews.com https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/guide-to-sharenting/

2025-07-07 LG Add link to www.cyberghostvpn.com and target="_blank" param to a tags

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Book Recommendations From CareerBuilder.com

The CareerBuilder section in our December 16, 2007 newspaper featured 16 career guidance books in its list of "this year's most interesting career books." A few of them look as though they'd be really helpful for me. Unfortunately I couldn't find the article online. I'll list the book titles with links....

"The IT Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen To, and Remember" Maybe?
"Winning Nice: How to Succeed in Business and Life Without Waging War" Maybe?
"Lessons on Leadership: The 7 Fundamental Management Skills for Leaders at All Levels"
"Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate With Power and Impact"
"Get Your M.B.A. Part-Time, Fourth Edition: For the Part-Time Student with a Full-Time Life"
"Buzz: How to Create It and Win With It"
"Work Like You're Showing Off: The Joy, Jazz, and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today" Maybe?
"Making a Living While Making a Difference: Conscious Careers for an Era of Interdependence"
This sounds like a good one!
"Get Ahead by Going Abroad: A Woman's Guide to Fast-track Career Success"
"Saving the Earth as a Career: Advice on Becoming a Conservation Professional" This sounds like another good one!
"Escape the Mid-Career Doldrums: What to do Next When You're Bored, Burned Out, Retired or Fired" Yes, this is what I need!
"Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible" Bingo! (But I suspect the authors don't advocate Spending an hour blogging about career books.)
"Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-how for Business And Career Success"
"College Majors Scorecard" The self-assessment tool sounds interesting.
"The Girl's Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business"
"Career and Corporate Cool" Maybe?

Monday, November 14, 2005

Just Say "No"

In one of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" works, New York City is described as a place where it's best to answer "No" to three out of every four questions people ask you.* Douglas Adams wrote that back in the early eighties, well before the first "Windows" was released. Yet it applies so well to our modern day Windows operating systems.

Consider what you go through today to install software.

"You must agree to the following End User License Agreement. Blah blah blah... Do you agree?"

"Yes." [Replying no here means you can't install.]

"Would you like to install Active Desktop?"

"No!"

"Would you like to make this your default browser?"

"NO!"

"Would you like to sign up for our mailing list so that we may pester you with annoying HTML emails that contain web tags?"

"NO!!!"

See?

Now that End User License Agreement, or EULA, is a truely annoying thing. The difference between Spyware and "Legitmate" Spyware is that the latter comes with a license agreement that tells you that it monitors your activity and calls home about it. So it's important to at least skim through license agreements before agreeing to them.

And I do. I really do. But it's getting harder to find time to do this, especially since I use many programs that get updated once every few months.

So I was intrigued when I learned about a tool called EULAlyzer (which I first learned about from this CastleCops newsletter article) that "can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases."

I plan to try it out just as soon as I finish reading its EULA. :)

------------------

* Well, I recently re-read all five books in DNA's HG2G trilogy. I came across the "answer 'no' to three out of every four questions people ask" idea in "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". And it takes place in San Francisco, not New York (in which, I suspect, you'd be better off answering no to every seven out of eight questions...), when Arthur and the fetching Fenchurch travel all the way to visit Wonko the Sane. -LG 2006-03-04

Sunday, October 02, 2005

List of Books I've Read Recently

Click

to jump to my LibaryThing catalog, which is up-to-date as of August 2008, or view the list below, which I've stopped maintaining in June.

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Monday, June 06, 2005

Book Review: "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

At 560 pages, Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is anything but short. That is, until you consider that it really is the history of Everything.[1] In fact, Bryson's gift for understating book titles, as employed for "A Walk in the Woods" (in which he chronicles his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail) is in full swing for this work.

It's a bit of a choppy book. But it's not easy to segue from the formation of, say, mountain ranges to the formation of Life, without sounding like a parody of Airplane.[2] Besides, we seem to lack quite a bit of hard evidence for most of Earth's history.

Otherwise I liked this history a lot. At times, I thought I was reading Douglas Adams, except that the scientists in an Adams novel wouldn't be as outlandish as the ones we owe our understanding of science to. The end, where Bryson discusses extinction, reminded me a great deal of Adams' "Last Chance to See."

But Adamseque examples appear even earlier on in the book. When Bryson discusses the 1918 flu epidemic, he describes an experiment in which 62 prison inmates are purposely exposed to people infected with the deadly strain. Not one even came down with the flu, yet the doctor who conducted the study became ill and died.

If you're the type who tends to worry about things that can go wrong, this book definitely will send you over the edge. Not only is our tiny planet the only place in the Universe we know of that can support our form of life, there are actually very few places on Earth that are hospitable. Even worse, though, is that the Earth is overdue for a spell of inhospitablility. And there'd be very little time to even prepare[3] and no escape. What are these things we're overdue for? A collision with a big asteroid, the blowing of a huge volcano in Yellowstone National Park, a magnetic reversal[4] are just a few of the things we have to look forward to. And it's not as if we can just run on over to Magrathea to pick up Earth Mark II if anything breaks.

[1] Everything scientific, that is. Imagine if he decided to include the history of religion, art and the Rolling Stones?

[2] Like when the guy says, "What happened? Tell me everything from the beginning." And the goofy guy says, "The Earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came...."

[3] You might ask, "How would you prepare for an asteroid strike? Put a paper bag over your head? You can't do anything about it." Well, you could max out your credit cards buying all kinds of crazy stuff. You might bump into me at Walmart buying out their line of lava lamps.

[4] "What's so bad about a magnetic reversal? You can just turn your compass around 180 degrees when hiking," you might say. Actually the magnetic field shields us from harmful solar winds. The reversal might be a slow process, with a gradual decline of Earth's magnetic field to zero, and then a gradual increase in the strength of the opposite sense field. We might have enough time to build up an entire industry around radiation-proof clothing.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Book Review: "Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology"

A funny thing happened when I went to the local library to look for "Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology," by Eric Brende -- the computerized card catalog database was inaccessible. I guess the situation was more ironic than funny. Either way, it had me longing for those arrays of oak drawers filled with index cards.

Eventually the librarian was able to look it up and put it on hold for me, not without remarking on the irony of the situation.

I don't usually go to the library to look for books. Instead, I look for what I want online and go just to pick it up. But I was there with my daughter and decided to take a look-see.

I first read "Better Off" a few months ago. My wife had checked it out accidentally, thinking it was something else. Then she gave it to me to read.

The main idea behind the book is that technology places a barrier between a person and the outcome of his effort. When that barrier is removed, the person finds meaning and even euphoria in his labor. A minor point is that any time that's saved by using labor-saving devices is either wasted or is spent in maintaining (or paying for) the technology that saved you the time.

After absorbing numerous books that poke fun at technology, I enjoyed reading one that when so far as to do something about it. The author turns his back on it and lives for eighteen months in an "Amish-like" community. (I sometimes wonder if he thought about subtitling it "Flipping the Bird on Technology.") The fact that he wrote about his experience made me want to write about my experiences with technology. So reading the book partly inspired me to create this blog.

But this book left me puzzled, so I decided to re-read it. I hardly ever re-read a book after only a few months. But I can't help thinking that the author was suffering from burn-out from his graduate studies and thesis work. As well, just before completing his program, he was involved in an accident that was severe enough to leave him temporarily debilitated. This, too, I believe explains his romance with (and eventual marriage to) his live-in caretaker.

The other reason I wanted to re-read it because I came across a study[1] recently that seemed to suggest that such conditions as ADHD and autism were non-existent among the "native" Amish. But the only commentary on youth is that their courtship is scripted and predictable. And with the exception of one child who was born with a genetic disease, there seems to be no need for medical care.

He seems to suggest that people would be better off with the lifestyle he chose. But the people he lived with relied on products that were made with the help of modern technology. Such products include the metal in their gardening tools, for example. Watch steel-workers and miners leave for the farm and wave goodbye to your ability to work the soil.

So he flips the technology switch off, but keeps it within reach for when it's needed.

[1] The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly, by Dan Olmsted.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Douglas Adams on Technology

Here's some brief, witty commentary on technology from Douglas Adams. These snippets can be found in The Salmon of Doubt, which I just finished reading.

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Douglas Adams

Many events and influences led to my starting this blog. As this is day number 42 of 2005, it seems appropriate to mention Douglas Adams.

Mr. Adams is well known in geek circles for authoring "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." What I like best about his works is that they're filled with humorous examples of how technology fails. The more sophisticated it is, the more utterly infuriating it becomes to operate. And it fails us at the most inopportune times.

One of my favorite examples of this is the motion-activated radio on board the Heart of Gold. You don't even need to get up to change the channels or mute it. On the other hand, you have to sit awfully still if you don't want to change it inadvertently. Obviously the engineer who came up with that idea wasn't too fond of dancing.

If you think that's silly, consider the earliest CD players. (And at the risk of showing my age, remember their precursors, vinyl?) You certainly couldn't jump around too much without causing the player to skip. So audio equipment was anchored to walls, and the individual components placed on foam isolators.

Another example. How many of you cell phone users have repeatedly said, "I can hear you. Can you hear me?" Pretty soon we'll see phones equipped with the popular ICHY button, which will automate this. Come to think of it, why stop there? Why not have these buttons, too:

"I'm fine. And you?"
"Hi! How are you?"
"This is true."
"Cool!"
"Whatever"
"Can't make it then. How about next Tuesday?"
"Bye"
"See you, later."
"Take care."

If those last three seem vaguely familiar to you, does the term "sig" or "signature" help?

Before I end this entry, I'd like to encourage you to point your browser to the online Guide, hosted by the BBC, which you'll find here.

Bye. See you later. Take care. Whatever.

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