New books!

I just ordered 5 more books to read, which is a horrible idea considering I have an upcoming thesis proposal, paper deadline, and camera-ready deadline. I ordered:

“The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity” by Alan Cooper

“The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger” by Marc Levinson

“The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World” by A. J. Jacobs

“The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works–and How It’s Transforming the American Economy” by Charles Fishman

“Skyscraper” by Robert Byrne

To Engineer is Human

I just read the above-mentioned book by Henry Petroski. I liked it very much, and it should definitely be required reading for anybody in a technical field. What I learned from it is primarily that bridges used to fail all the time. A lot of people ask today, “how come we can’t build software the way we build bridges.” I think a reasonable answer might actually be, “we do.” It’s just that when a bridge falls down the disaster is done. Bad software has the opportunity to fail over and over again.

There were a lot of other books mentioned in this one which sound interesting to me. So that I remember what they are…

David Billington’s “Robert Maillart’s Bridges: The Art of Engineering.”

Robert Byrne’s “Skyscraper.”

Henry J. Cowan’s “The Master Builders: A History of Structural and Environmental Design from Ancient Egypt to the Nineteenth Century.”

Sir Geoffrey de Havilland’s “Sky Fever: The Autobiography.”

Derek D. Dempster’s “The Tale of the Comet.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories.”

Thomas K. McKaig’s “Building Failures: Case Studies in Construction and Design.”

Steven S. Ross’s “Construction Disasters: Design Failures, Causes, and Prevention.”

George L. Vose’s “Bridge Disasters in America: The Cause and the Remedy.” Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1887.

The Soul of a New Machine

I just finished Tracy Kidder’s “The Soul of a New Machine”. I
thoroughly enjoyed it, reading all but the first chapter during my
flights from Pittsburgh to Oakland, CA. Actually, the first chapter
was my least favorite, and after reading it I put the book down for
several weeks before resuming. The book describes the creation of the
32-bit Eagle, backwards compatible with the 16-bit Eclipse, at Data
General Corporation during roughly 1978-1980. This project stands out
in the degree to which management isolated the engineering team from
the rest of the company and gave them a great deal of technical
freedom. This allowed the engineers to design and build what they
thought was a good machine. I do not say “great” machine because the
engineers worked under enormous time pressure, as has proven to be
typical of the industry. Still, as regular a participant in endeavors
for which panic-stricken is the best description of the schedule, this
book struck a chord with me. One of the main characters, Tom West,
sounds like a fascinating man. The prologue describes him as “a good
man in a storm”. I hope that people may someday say the same about
me.

Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg

I have recently read “Dreaming in Code” by Scott Rosenberg. The book actually has a website.

I read this book because I thought it might explain the challenges of doing software in a way that some “regular people” in my life might find approachable. I still believe that to be true.

I liked this book, as it goes into great detail about an ongoing software project today. It helps to connect programs on a computer with the people who actually create them, and the kinds of problems they have in doing so. The project described in the book is called Chandler, which is named after a dog, and has nothing to do with Friends (good thing; I nearly stopped reading!). I also liked the book because it describes a lot of historical events in the computing industry.

I haven’t actually installed or used Chandler yet, but I might. Thunderbird 2.0 is supposed to integrate with Google Calendar though, which will solve a lot of my problems.

Quicksilver, The Tipping Point

I have somewhat recently read “Quicksilver” by Neal Stephenson and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Quicksilver changed my impression of Neal Stephenson; his talents are much broader than I thought. Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash are both very easy to relate to for a computer nerd such as myself. Quicksilver demonstrated that Stephenson not only understands a lot about technology but that he has also studied a lot of history. Cool.

The Tipping Point is an easy to read book about difficult-to-explain phenomena, such as sudden changes in crime rates. It is full of very detailed examples that make it a lot of fun to read. I definitely recommend this one.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper

I haven’t read this book but it was recommended to me. Hopefully this post will cause me to remember it.

Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield

This book is about the famous Spartan battle at the Gates of Thermopylae. Sometimes I think it would have been cool to have lived a long time ago and been a fierce warrior. This book changed my mind; the Spartans were mightier men than I.

Cryptonomicon and others by Neal Stephenson

I recently read this book by Neal Stephenson; I have also read Snow Crash. I really like this guy’s writing. The book had a cool double plotline — partially set in WW2 and partially in present day.

I also have a copy of Quicksilver, which I haven’t started to read yet.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

I somewhat recently read Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This book is a classic for a reason. Go read it.

A History of Pi

I recently read A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann. I enjoyed reading this book as it is best described as a depth-first look at a very narrow slice of history. That is to say, it covers a lot of years. As a person with a limited knowledge of history, I enjoyed learning about so many time periods at once. As a nerd, of course, I enjoyed learning about Pi.