Books

Bob Woodward, famed reporter from the Washington Post, has done an amazing job with this book. The degree of access and breadth of sources is amazing; starting with President Bush, and reaching across his entire cabinet, to key players in the State Department, and the Pentagon.

Plan of Attack recounts the 16 month odyssey toward the decision to attack Iraq. While I’m not a big fan of Bush’s, I find that I have more respect for how he managed the process to decide to go to war. There certainly remains much to second-guess, as this book was published in the year after the end of major combat operations. But given the information available to him at the time, it’s hard to fault the administration for the choices they made.

I am still left with the feeling that Bush has never been able to put together a strong diplomatic approach to foreign affairs. I think there is a lot of room to work underneath a simple show of force. As portrayed in this book, Bush did little more than treat the UN as a problem to be dealt with; he wanted a rubber stamp more than anything. You feel more frustration with their timeline being held up than treating the UN as a real vehicle for true negotiation, listening and understanding.

While hinting at several areas where critics can be strongly critical, I think the book overall tries to be very fair in its coverage and analysis. I particularly enjoyed reading details about DB/ROCKSTARS the CIA team that developed much of the early intelligence before the beginning of the war.

124 letters from Suor Maria Celeste Galilei (a nun of the order of Poor Clare) written to her father, Galileo form the spine of this unbelievably well written biography. The text of whole letters along with commentary and narrative by the author make for one of the best biographies I’ve ever read.

The book is as much history of the Catholic Church and the Italian inquisition as it is a biography. The author does a great job showing the context of the 30 years war and the attitudes of Pope Urban the VIII as they change over time. From this history we can be reminded of the beauty and importance of the first amendment to our constitution.

There is also enough science sprinkled in to get a feel for the works of Galileo and how much influence he clearly had on Newton. Specifically the laws of motion and gravity were laid out fairly clearly by Galileo in his final bootlegged work Two Sciences, which could not be published in Italian, only English and Dutch in protestant countries.

One more little note. This is the only biography that I’ve ever read that has a real surprise ending…

Can you make a rocket ship by blowing up nuclear bombs behind it to push it along? Apparently, you can! And the enigineering was done in the late 50’s. George Dyson interviewed many of the principals (including his father, Freeman Dyson, who worked on the project when George was only 5 years old) and examined thousands of pages of newly declassified documents to pull together the fascinating story of this bold engineering project.

One of the challenges is how to harness a very brief and very high energy explosion, and convert it into useful propulsion without destroying the vehicle. Included are pictures of experiments using high explosives (C4) to prove the “pusher-plate” design (a big shock absorber placed between the vehicle and the explosion).

This book is so good I have to admit I’m not done with it and I need to share how good it is. Maor goes through the history of things that lead up to the nubmer e. All the while explaining not only the math that was being used at the time, but Why. That’s a very important point as he does a great job setting the context for each discovery.

In school I was never bad at math, but series math was always toughest because I didn’t ever grasp why anyone would really want to add up stuff in an infinite series. Teachers would always present the series as if it came right out of the air begging to be summed up. Maor always presents them in a very solid way.

Again I haven’t finished the book, but I’m really enjoying it. I would go as far as to say I’m savoring it.

I will add to this review after I finish the book which will be soon as I’m reading almost nothing else at this point.

The amazing story of the 1993 battle in Mogadishu, Somalia in which 18 US soldiers were killed, along with many 100’s of Somali’s presumed dead. This story is very relevant to the current situation (in October 2001) where we are trying to use traditional military action to capture a single person. In 1993, we were trying to apprehend “warlord” Mohamed Farrah Aidid - and today we are going after Osama bin Laden.

Our critical mistake in this episode was drastically underestimating the enemy. While we had every advantage in terms of technology and military hardware, the Somali’s had on their side sheer numbers of fighters as well as their determined willingness to fight regardless of the dangers to their own lives. Time and again, Somali fighters would put themselves in direct fire of the US forces to attack, usually being killed in the process. Another Somali fighter would then pick up their weapon and take their place. This went on for 12 to 18 hours in a house-to-house street battle that kept the relatively small force of Americans pinned down all night.

Like the movies Saving Private Ryan and Three Kings this book depicts a very graphic image of war and battle. While I do believe that there are things we need to be willing to fight for, every one of us needs to understand the type of situation we are asking our military to go in to.

I just finished this book in February of 2001. I find this book to be among the more balanced depictions of the Microsoft trial that I’ve read; and I feel that the author has a good general understanding of the issues (though he is still a bit confused on some technical issues).

Some of the quotes from this book may actually have a bearing on the case as Judge Jackson is quoted as saying some very unfavorable remarks that could be used to argue that he showed undue bias against Microsoft. I’m particularly struck by Jackson’s statements about Microsoft’s lack of contriteness. He seems to think that Microsoft is not allowed to have the opinion that we did nothing wrong. I believe that is our prerogative and duty to continue to say so as long as we still see it that way. But that does not mean that Microsoft could not honor a well-written and specific behavioral remedy negotiated by the parties. Jackson seems to equate our disagreement about guilt, with our inability to conform to a behavioral remedy. I see these as totally separable.

Chapter 21 is particularly interesting as it outlines in some detail, the negotiated settlement that Microsoft was prepared to accept were it not for the recalcitrance of the States Attorneys General. This book really points out the failure of Joel Klein to bring the States together and in line with the US goverment’s interests in this case.

I find it ironic that the strongest opponents of Microsoft in this case (AOL/Netscape, Cisco, IBM), are also those that tend to have products that attempt to “lock in” their customers to a much larger degree than Microsoft has ever done.

I think what this case failed to really address is the issue of how Microsoft’s competitors can have the same opportunity to innovate in building desktop platforms that Microsoft has. It would certainly be a disaster for the US economy and consumers to have the government appointing a committee as to which features can be added to Windows. Looking back in hindsight - it seems unfathomable that Microsoft could NOT integrate a web browser into it’s operating system as the Internet has become an equal and sometimes more important component for users than the traditional file system, or windows interfaces.

At root of Microsofts problems is that given the very vague wording of the US anti-trust laws, including an imprecise interpretation of monopoly, it’s very difficult for a company to know when it must stop conforming to the standard commercial rules that apply to all businesses, and instead start confroming to the special laws for behavior that apply to a monopoly.

I don’t see how we can escape the labeling of Windows as a monopoly OS on Intel desktop systems. But what need be done about that? Some of the proposed behavioral remedies would enable competitors to have equal access to Windows at a standardized price. OEM’s would be free to install other software as well as add some non-destructive modifications to the desktop and startup screens. It would also ensure that developers for Windows could have early and complete information about the Window’s API’s.

Unfortunately, Microsoft’s enemies are primarily interested in the destruction of a keen competitor, regardless of the impact or cost to consumers or Microsoft’s ability to continue to innovate. And the States Attorneys General seem to be more interested in building publicity for their personal political careers (and financial backing from the competitive businesses owners in their states) than they are in acting in the best interests of the citizens of their states.

This book is a collection of essays that first appeared in American Scientist. I found them to be a wonderful collection on the history of engineering discipline. Henry Petroski shares my fascination with the large seemingly impossible engineering projects from history. He provides not only fascinating technical information, but also a perspective into the lives and thinking of the men and women who were behind these great feats.

His book includes an excellent essay on the Panama Canal project, the history of the Channel Tunnel, and the design and politics of the Petronas Towers (now the largest buildings in the world). A particularly thought provoking essay on the Nobel Prize, and how it has been subverted from Alfred Nobel’s original goal to reward practical engineering, and now is aimed more at practitioners of basic research.

The book’s title is somewhat of a misnomer. At first I thought this book was about the issue of vitalism (or anti-vitalism); it would make the case for the mind being a manifestation of straightforward physical processes in the brain. I expected this book to be an argument against those such as Roger Penrose who argue that the functioning of the mind and human intelligence, require something more than an understanding of the chemical and biological processes of neurons.

In actuality, this book is a fascinating account of the workings of vision in the brain. Dr. Crick presents a fascinating overview of the science up until that time (published in 1995). While we don’t have all the answers, it’s a marvel to examine the richly coupled areas of the brain and to understand some of the attributes that neuronal computation posses.

I now want to read more about the state of the art of neural networking and the successes that have been made in modeling brain-like computation using brain-like computing and learning structures.

Philip and I must have been classmates together at MIT, since we were in the same class (class of ‘82). Unfortunately, I don’t remember him. The difference between Philip and I: he’s stayed at MIT (and has had the same email address for two decades) and hates Microsoft, whereas I left MIT to come to Microsoft (in 1983).

At first, I was really put off by the comments Phil makes about Microsoft (many ranging from inaccurate to unfair). But, in reading his book, I find that he makes inaccurate and unfair comments about everybody. I think of him as kind of a tough movie critic. In some cases he’s being sarcastic, but there is usually a bit of truth to his complaints and barbs and I appreciate that he holds software vendors’ (even Microsoft) feet to the coals for overly complicated or poorly performing products.

The Guide to Web Publishing is an excellent primer on how to set up a web site that is backed by a database of information. Phil’s other love is photography, so he’s sprinkled his book with (irrelevant, but excellent) photographs.

I’ve really enjoyed the book for the view it’s given me on the trials and tribulations of using current web server and database technology to build data-backed web sites. Philp’s got a ton of experience with the O/S and databases; much of the book reads like a primer, but also includes the battle stories, opinion, and benefits from the depth of his experience setting up real sites.

If you don’t want to buy Phil’s book you can read the online version. In fact, his web site, photo.net is an excellent example of a database-backed web site (and he even includes the source code for his site, on his site).

Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web browser and its underlying protocols we use today. I found this book is really exciting because you can hear in his own words how he was trying to create a system that let people build information systems that could truly be open and promote very flexible linking between them. His genius is in building a very simple system without all the complexities of earlier attempts (Ted Nelson’s Xanadu, for example).

Also exciting to me is his recognition that “we’re not done yet”. There is much more to build especially in how people can use the web to interact and create content for the web. The web standards have become popularize primarily as a publishing medium; relatively few people are creating the content that everyone else is reading. Tim’s original intent was to create a system where everyone can be an author.

Philosophically, Tim places more trust in the government to own and control how the Internet will evolve (and is relatively more willing to have the government proscribe the actions that business entities can take). I, personally, feel that commercial freedom is a straightforward extension of individual freedom and I want the government to do very little in the way of controlling or proscribing what is allowed on the Internet.

This book really got me starting to think about the Open Source movement as well (in which much of the Internet software was developed and continues to evolve). More on that in my upcoming review of Open Sources.

The theme of the movie picks up where Descartes left off. “I think, therefore I am,” becomes “I think, therefore my mind is connected to a 10-Billion-Mind network running a simulation of the late 20th century.”

Yes, there are a lot of unexplained connections between the real world and that of life in The Matrix, but the action and visual effects in this movie make it one of the most exciting films in the last decade (IMHO).

One of the more mind-blowing effects is one created by effects supervisor John Gaeta. In the movie, characters are able to perform a sort of time-dilation trick to allow them to do things like dodge bullets. What John has been able to pull off is the illusion that the camera is able to dolly around the actors in this frozen time sequence. Imagine actress Carrie-Anne Moss jumping into the air and hanging in near motionless suspension, as the camera zooms around her 360 degrees. It’s an impossible shot…

One of the features of the DVD is The Making of The Matrix where we get to see the array of cameras spaced every few degrees around the action. By shooting the scene from many angles at once they were able to cut together the frames needed to create the frozen-time illusions.

So I’m browsing Amazon.com and I see they have a new feature - Purchase Circles. Since they know the zip code and email address for all of their customers, they’ve done a clever thing. They’ve assembled their customers into various communities - by city, by school, or by business - and they let you see what that group is buying.

I didn’t think there could be much variation based on city - but boy was I wrong. For example, do you think the people of Hollywood, CA would be so self-centered as to just be reading about the movie industry - you bet they are! And that’s how I ran into this book.

The number one book being read by Amazon’s Hollywood customers is The Kid Stays in the Picture. What really struck me is that this is an audio book. Now, I know that audio books are not that popular to begin with, but here is this tape that is topping the list of all books being bought in Hollywood. I had to get it.

And it’s great. I’m sorry to say - I didn’t remember who Robert Evans was. He ran Paramount for a decade. Before that he was an actor. And, most importantly, he’s an outrageous character and storyteller. And you get to hear him tell his own story on these tapes.

The book is part biography of Gen. Horner and part history of the Gulf war. The book fills in enough details so you understand who Gen. Horner is, how he was trained, his experiences as a fighter pilot in Vietnam and how that affected the way he commanded the air campaign in the Gulf.

The remainder of the book tells the detailed story of the Gulf campaign. From initial planning and deployment, to the day-to-day sortie scheduling. The book provides an inside look at how the command center was operated and the rivalries between the various services and various allied forces. Gen. Horner is not bashful about naming names and in some cases giving people a dressing down for their mistakes (including his own). In many ways, he faced the same management problems of any large organization - except in this one, lives were at stake when they made mistakes or bad decisions.

There’s also plenty of dramatic material about rescue missions to save downed pilots, etc. A fun and informative book for understanding how our military thinks about and implements its mission.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery, an early mail pilot (or as I commonly slip, “email pilot”…people did, after all, have to receive their email somehow before the Internet), writes about his experiences flying the mails from France to Africa. His subject is more about the condition of the human spirit than it is about any particulars about flying and aviation. But for him, the airplane is a vehicle that brings him closer to the world and to other men.

A particularly gripping part of the book is his description of his crash in the dessert, and his near death from thirst before being rescued (or rather, saving himself).

Interestingly, Charles Lindberg’s wife had a close relationship with Antoine De Saint-Exupery leading into WWII; she recognized in him a man that could express his feelings far beyond Charles’s ability to do so. Tragically, Saint-Exupery died in the later years of the war while on a flying mission, presumably crashing into the sea.

The author is probably best known for his “children’s classic”, The Little Prince.

An excellently written account of the obsessions and trials of J.S.G. Boggs. You may have heard of him. He’s the artist that has been able to “pay” for goods by trading his drawings of money at face value. He apparently drew his first $1 by absent mindedly doodling on a napkin - only to have the waitress offer to take it in lieu of money - and she even brought him the change.

Boggs takes this obsession to extremes and gets into increasingly severe legal troubles in the U.S., Britain, and Australia. He never attempts to pass his work as actual money, but skirts at the margin legality by his increasingly audacious works (including mechanically printing $1 million in Boggs Bucks at one point).

A very talented artist, his works are now quite valuable in their own right (he’s passed more than $1 million dollars in Boggs denominated “currency”). The book raises some interesting questions related to how we place value in increasingly abstract objects (paper money, electronic transactions, stocks, etc.).

Though not a highly technical book, I found Bill’s book on doing business in the Internet age a great source of real-world examples. Bill has an amazing depth of experience in talking to customers all over the world and understanding their technical and infrastructure problems. This book is chock full of case studies that show how people are using the Internet and Internet-technologies to solve their business problems.

Bill is very keen on emphasizing speed and quickness of action. I think sometimes to the exclusion of taking quality (of life and work) into account. I get the image of Bill’s vision of the future filled with very frantic and hectic business people trying to make decisions as quick as humanly possible - and in some cases letting their machines make them even faster.

As I write this, war is heating up in the Balkans and it looks like once again the U.S. could be sending troops into battle. This book is the story of marksman Carlos Hathcock who’s exploits as a sniper in Vietnam have become legendary. With a white feather in his hat, he ventured out into the jungle alone to wreak havoc on the enemy. The level of discipline and personal commitment to do this job was, for me, the fascinating part of this story.

Interestingly, many of the reviews on the Amazon bookstore site are from people who claim to know Carlos personally. When he died (1998) the Wall Street Journal ran an article on Sgt. Hathcock, which is how I found this book in the first place. His fans and relatives entered memorials to him in the book reviews on the site!

Despite the almost universal enthusiasm by Amazon reviewers for the book (and Hathcock), I found the writing to be uneven. There are a couple of stories that keep you on the edge of your seat but other sections seem to ramble on to pad the content out to book length. Amazingly, none of the reviewers of the book note how sad it is that a man of great personal initiative gave his will over to that of his government to fight in a war that ultimately accomplished nothing.

Freeman Dyson is very cool. I first saw him on a video interview that profiled many prominent scientists. Of all those interviewed, I found Freeman to be the most unpretentious and open.

In this book, Freeman talks about the progress of science, and looks to the future. He makes a great point about there being two different types of science. One, which is an extension of philosophy, is a world of concepts and theories, but which is not motivated primarily by experiment.

The second, the one he has the most passion/respect for, is rooted in craftsmanship. It is the science of tools, and tool making, and precise measurement. He derides biologists for not making their own tools, as the astronomer-culture is much more apt to do.

The last part of the book looks to the future of what he sees as the three most important scientific trends emerging today - solar energy, biotechnology, and the internet. He discusses how they are related and what possible outcomes are.

For my taste, he is a bit fanciful; and I don’t necessarily agree with his views on social justice and their importance in guiding the development of these three technologies.

A round serving of political satire. Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives are skewered by Al Franken in this hilarious book. This book was written before the Lewinski scandal was made public. But it is prescient in pointing out what a sad group the 1996 conservative leadership was. I particularly love the skewering Gingrich gets for his hypocrisy in preaching family values when he had divorced his wife (who was dying of cancer) and then refused to pay alimony.

The whole impeachment trial left me with such a bad taste for the Republican leadership (though I consider myself an Independent) - it was joyful to have Al “sock-it-to-em”. While the Conservatives seem to have all the money and support of business, it seems like the Liberals have the best sense of humor (at least the best comedians seem to be Liberals).

The amazing story of the atomic bomb project. I love the way the book begins - tracing Leo Szilard strolling through the streets of London, and suddenly realizing that a nuclear chain reaction could be possible:

“As the light changed to green and I crossed the street, it…suddenly occurred to me that if we could find an element which is split by neutrons and which would emit two neutrons when it absorbs one neutron, such an element, if assembled in sufficiently large mass, could sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

“I didn’t see at the moment just how one would go about finding such an element, or what experiments would be needed, but the idea never left me. In certain circumstances it might be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale, and construct atomic bombs.”

You just have to love a guy who can not only be so clever, but can think big like this. And there are dozens of other fascinating characters and events throughout the book.

This book is a wonderful collection of design elements for architecture. Each pattern dissects a basic architectural element ranging from a metropolitan plan down to the design of the flow through an individual home. Each pattern is placed in the context of a problem or activity, and shows how that particular solution is realized via some architectural device.

For example, the pattern for Levels of Intimacy describes the problem that each house must accommodate different levels of familiarity and intimacy. We need spaces in our home to allow guests to enter and yet not be admitted to our most personal spaces. The design of a home must therefore allow for different levels of intimacy begining with the least intimate/more formal at the home entryway, and becoming more casual and intimate as you proceeded into family living, eating, and sleeping spaces.

This book also influenced software designers to produce analagous collections of design patterns for the software design field.

Here’s an interesting puzzle. Knowing that humans all descend from a group migration originating from the fertile crescent in the Middle East, why is it that we see very different levels of cultural and technological development in different parts of the world?

These different levels have lead to catastrophic consequences for the lessor developed peoples when they have come into contact again with more advanced cultures. The prime example is that of the Spanish invasion of the Americas. The Aztec culture was decimated, despite their much larger numbers and having the advantage of being the defender of an aggression.

Jared’s answer lies mainly in the availability of plant species that could for the basis of an agrarian society. Without that, peoples are forced to expend most of their resources on pure survival. Once they have an agricultural society they are freed to dedicate time to developing specialization and technology.

I like especially that Jared provides justification for his hypothesis as well as shows the analysis for alternative theories. It’s a very well done attempt to try to piece together the reasons behind differential development.

By the way thinking about the fate of the Aztecs, I’m very much less enthused about making physical contact with extra-terrestrial life. I’m a big fan of SETIs listening efforts, but it would be prudent to minimize the amount of telegraphing our presence.