Tony Curtis - An American Prince

American Prince by Tony Curtis

Tony gives a very candid description of the events in his life. He starts the book with his brief romance with Marylin Monroe when they both first arrived in Hollywood. He met her before she was blond and spoke with her characteristic breathy voice.  He later relays struggles he and Billy Wilder had working with her and her managers on the set of Some Like It Hot.  His often quoted remark that kissing Marlyn Monroe was like "Kissing Hitler" was meant to be sarcastic.   He describes each of his movies and his co-stars including Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Roger Moore and others.

His childhood was perfect training for his life in the movies as he spent most of it on the streets of New York developing athletic prowess that he used in his films including Houdini.   He was lucky to avoid being killed by a mob after dropping liquid filled condoms on a parade of Nazi sympathizers in the lead up to WWII. His disfunctional parents did not provide a good role model for his personal relationships.

After a roller coaster life that included a hellish decent into the drug culture of the 80's, he finally found peace with his last wife. He spent this time painting and taking care of former race horses in Las Vegas Nevada.

A tribute to Tony Curtis - 3 minutes

The book, American Prince: A Memoir is available from Amazon.com.

Speaking of Faith by Krista Tippett

Krista Tippet's book Speaking of Faith, covers the faith journey of the public radio host.  She describes her journey to have conversations with people of different religions around the world. 

I was particularly interested in her differentiation between thin and deep faith.  An example of thin faith would be that practiced in Rwanda where church goers attacked and killed their neighbors because they were of different height.  Deep faith or religion provides a more fuller understanding of the nuances of the whole religious experience and does not focus on only a small slice. 

She describes a conversation between a Jewish scholar and a Muslim holy man.  They attempted to differentiate acts of faith from those that were done for other reasons. When an act increases the beauty in the world through music, caring, improving life, reducing misery then people are following the practices of their religion. When an act destroys or makes things ugly then it comes not from the long history of religious practice but from a flawed interpretation. For me a simpler dichotomy is compassion vs. hatred.  It's a good check on understanding motivation. The compassion does need to be effective as pious good intentions without organization or follow through can be a source of frustration and a waste of time.

Krista describes her time in West and East Germany in the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this point in her life she put aside religion and looked for relevance in the political sphere.  She contrasted the maturity of her East German friends attempting to live life under oppression and the rich, powerful and often immature people she met while working at the West German Embassy. 

Reconnecting with Compassion- Ted Talk - Krista Tippet


The book, Speaking of Faith is available from Amazon.com

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

The book, Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard is a tightly written book about the last days of the Lincoln presidency.  Starting with his second inaugural speech and ending with the investigation of his assassination.  The authors provide more details into the activities of John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators as they work on a plan to take down the US government. 

The last battles of the Civil War are also described in rather graphic detail giving a sense of the raw brutality of the battles.  The back history of Lee and Grant provides a better depth of understanding between the two very different men. 

Lincoln's sleepless nights and realization that his time on earth may be short cast a foreboding shadow over the future.  This is an excellently written suspense thriller that provides gritty details to a very tragic era in American History.

For the those looking for Abe Lincoln quotes Good Reads has an extensive collection

A section from the audio book

The book, Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever is available from Amazon.com

Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon has written a short a pithy book about the unoriginal origins of artistic creation.  He wrote this book as a note to a himself as a younger person after learning these insights working on the creative process.  He believes all artistic and creative work is derivative.  It is a reaction to what has happened in the past.

Highlights:  Don't spend all of you time on one creative outlet.  Feed yourself with multiple projects in different areas.  Play music, go for a walk in nature, write blogs.  If you focus just on one aspect your life ceases to be whole.   Go ahead procrastinate and bounce from one to another and give the creativity in another area a chance to well up.  Do not write what you know but write what you want to read.  Try to emulate your favorite artists.  Because we can not copy another person we discover our unique quirks and talents when we try to be like them. 

His advice to add tactile offline methods to creativity is a good one.  He finds time on the computer is a time to produce.  The time with clay, post it notes and pieces of paper is the time to be creative.

The book, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative is available from Amazon.com

The Watchers by Shane Harris

In The Watchers, Shane Harris describes the birth of the modern technological American surveillance state.  He follows the exploits of John Poindexter, the NSA head during the Reagan Administration, while weaving in details about computer programs designed to capture data and come up with patterns that would detect terrorist cells.  Programs such as Able Danger and others that existed before 911 would find patterns that suggested Al Qaeda had a global terror network with cells in the US, Europe, the Middle East and SE Asia before the CIA had this information.  They combined Internet searches with proprietary government data bases to develop possible leads for terrorists.  Repeatedly, the analysis of these data bases had to be destroyed because program produced inadvertent co mingling of US citizens with foreign terrorists.  This violated US privacy laws and laws governing US military surveillance. 

The book covers the topic with empathy towards the surveillance staff attempting to protect America from foreign terrorists while complying with laws that made their task extremely difficult.  I am interested in how America will balance the competing interest of privacy and security in the future.  It is also fascinating to learn how the NSA attempts to make some sense of the vast amounts of data it retrieves.  Prior to 911 the analysis of the data was not systematic and led to a fragmented response.

Speeches and interviews of Shane Harris.

Presidential candidate, Barak Obama, offers his opinion on privacy vs security in 2007

His current opinions on this appear to have changed according to a June 7, 2013 Washington Post article .

The Guardian reports that US technology companies are confused about the reports of the NSA PRISM program and seem unaware about nonspecific data mining June, 2013. 

The book, The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State is available from Amazon.com

Total Information Awareness Logo ( Knowledge is Power)

Powering the Dream by Alexis Madrigal

Powering the Dream by Alexis Madrigal covers the past 150 plus years of renewable energy history with a realistic understanding of the difficulties encountered while putting new technology into practice.  Each era has a new problem to solve.  At the beginning of the 20th century New York had a horse manure problem that appeared to be unsolvable until the electric cab, the bicycle and the liquid fueled vehicle came on the scene.  The freedom that the bicycle provided paved the way for the freedom of the automobile.  People want to go places without being stuck to someone elses schedule.

Now in the 21st century we are concerned about the carbon dioxide from the vehicles causing a different problem with climate change and what solutions appear to be the best fit.  He relates problems with boom and bust government financing of renewable energy.  Nearly all of the bioalgae research information was lost when it was defunded during the Reagan administration.   It had to be redone many years later. 

Getting the engineering bugs out of technology takes time as witnessed by the slow progression of wind technology in the 20th century.  The spectacular collapse of a large wind turbine built before the 1950's set back efforts to install wind turbines.

The Atlantic Monthly contributor spoke at a U of MN renewable energy conference in November, 2012 as noted in the blogpost Powering the Dream.

Learning from forgotten innovations - 2013 23 min..

The book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology is available from Amazon.com

Improvisation for the Spirit by Katie Goodman

Improvisation for the Spirit by Katie Goodman makes the connection between improv comedy and saying "Yes and" to living a less fearful more spontaneous life.  I enjoyed Katie's imaginary dialogue with her inner critic that keeps putting her down trying to use fear to stop her from attempting something new.  She gives her inner critic a funny name and a personality.  This allows her to use the critical information without it destroying her creativity.   She also is very realistic about people dropping everything and pursuing a dream.  Give it a test drive and understand it thoroughly with input from others before making a hasty life changing decision. 

U of MN Libraries emergency water response video 2012

I have used her phrase "Ready, Go, Set." often when working on new creative projects.  In the past it took more than a year to get training projects completed at work.  I wanted to shorten it to less than a week for some small projects and less than a month for larger projects requiring collaboration.  This has worked for a flood response video produced in collaboration with U of Minnesota facilities management and the library system.

Katie Goodman on improvisation

The book, Improvisation for the Spirit: Live a More Creative, Spontaneous, and Courageous Life Using the Tools of Improv Comedy is available from Amazon.com.

Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T Hallinan

Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan examines may ways in which we make mistakes.  We often fail to correct an error because we do not look at the root cause.  Dennis Quaid's children nearly died because they were given the incorrect concentration of blood thinner.  The bags with different concentrations were of similar color and his children were given the incorrect dose twice by two different people.  The manufacturer had even made changes to the bags with different coloring and a new warning label.  Unfortunately some of the older similar colored bags were still in service at the time of the mistake. 

We also think we will do better than we actually will do unless we are depressed or know that we are very poor at the task.  Under these two circumstances, predictions about outcomes are usually very accurate. 

Failure of senior experts to respond to feedback from individuals with less experience also creates mistakes.  Deaths and errors in surgery can occur because of the strict authoritarian structure in the operating room.  This authoritarian structure created problems with airplane crashes in the past but modern flight training has put members of the flight crews on equal footing.  Thus airplane crashes and fatalities have been severely reduced.  The author reports that medical error rates have been relatively stable for over fifty years with 10s of thousands of people dying annually due to medical errors in hospitals.  The author estimates that medical errors are the 8th leading cause of death in the US.

I am not an expert on hanging outdoor lights although I acted like one. This past weekend, I refused to listen to suggestions about how to put up the hangers insisting that I had it right.  It turns out I was wrong and the light hanging took twice as long as it needed to on a cold day.

Joseph Hallinan: Design things the way people actually use them.

The book, Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average is available from Amazon.com.

Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking by Steve Allen

Dumpth by Steve Allen is an angry humorous rant against the glorification of stupidity in society.   Steve strongly believes that using reason to solve problems should not be denigrated.  He strongly advocates against the dumbing down of society.  He discovered a vast amount of ignorance in society doing the humorous man on the street interviews.  His work pushed society towards seeking greater knowledge.  He has an admonition that we can take the time out of our of our lives to improve ourselves.

Steve Allen - Would you vote for a heterosexual man or woman for president?

 

Steve Allen's thoughts on bullying those who disagree with you and the danger of giving up your free will to blindly following someone.  Leah Remini thanks supporters for helping her while church members bully her.

The book, Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking With 101 Ways to Reason Better & Improve Your Mind is available from Amazon.com

The Thinker's Way by John Chaffee

In The Thinker's Way John Chaffee outlines a successful thoughtful approach to living an intentional life. He provides information on sorting out a reality from fuzzy unfocused thinking.  It is not a light read but it is a helpful wakeup call for someone drifting through life without a definite purpose.  You can paddle your boat in a direction of your choice or you can be tossed around like drift wood. 

I couldn't find a video by the author so I have included two brief Australian videos on critical thought.

The man who was made of straw

When can we use short cuts and when do we need to think critically.

The book, The Thinker's Way is available from Amazon.com

Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel

Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel

The author's libertarians view of the world comes through in this book. It is amazing how bad decisions are made based on really bad information. A case in point is the unwarranted fears about food irradiation. People die because an uneducated osteopath was scared of irradiated food and decided to stop it. John is a bit to quick to overgeneralize in the book in some situations. His contention that EEOC lawsuits don't help people they only enrich lawyers is only partiality true. He has a good section on parenting suggesting we teach children to think and not blindly obey.

John essentially provides a strong argument for evidenced based decision making in contrast to using magical or mythical thinking to arrive at solutions.

Myth: Greed is Bad - For Profit Lifeguards perform better than those trained by the Red Cross

The book, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel - Why Everything You Know is Wrong is available from Amazon.com.

No Boundary by Ken Wilber

No Boundaries by Ken Wilber
This is a good introductory book to Ken's philosophy. It is very accessible and less technically dense than his later works. It provides a good introduction to both eastern and western philosophy.  I found it to be helpful in following the evolution of Ken's integral thought process. 

An interesting discussion about integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into society.  Ken suggests that AI will be like artificial aliens not artificial humans.

The book, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth is available from Amazon.com.

A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber

In A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber describes the hierarchical structures for governments, organisms, philosophies and personal development. Each successive level is more complex offering more opportunities for success and additional opportunities for failure. This is not light reading but does help explain different political views and the difficulties inherent in rapidly converting a state ruled by tribal leaders into a representative democracy with a strong central government. He has a Integral Life web page devoted to providing a better understanding of the world.

He describes the five stages of development in the world as archaic, magical, mythical, rational and pluralistic.  Each one of the more advanced stages of development have ridiculed the previous stages for being infantile.  He offers this as the cause for the current cultural wars between individuals in mythic, rational and pluralistic stages.    He also notes that we all progress through theses stages starting as infants at the archaic world view and progress to through some of the stages during maturity.

He suggests that the world is going through a 6th stage of development where all of the partial truths of the other stages are recognized and not denigrated.  He suggests that when more than 10% of the population reaches this stage of development that it will be a cultural tipping point.  He suggests a similar tipping point occurred with respect to the rapid abolishment of the institution slavery over a period of 100 years.  Prior to that slavery had been practiced since the beginning of recorded history.

Ken Wilber on a Brief History of Everything

The book, A Brief History of Everything is available from Amazon.com.

Boomeritis by Ken Wilber

Boomeritis by Ken Wilber

This is really at least three books in one. One intermittent section is a nostalgic look back. Another involves two young people in a very sexual relationship. The third is a review of Ken Wilber's philosophy and describes why the baby boomer generation is so fractured in their vision of the world.
People with different philosophies are color coded into red, blue, green and orange. The red group is defined by hate of the other. The blue group defines modern conservatism; the green group is post modern liberalism and the orange group has evolved above all three groups. He accurately describes the deficiencies in each group. The blue group is overly paternalistic, the green group is overly maternalistic. The red group hates them both.

Ken Wilber - Europe and America 6 min.

The book, Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You Free! is available from Amazon.com.

Beyond Flipping the Classroom

Update: Ross Crockett describes how his flipped classroom evolved into a student centered learning classroom.  He gave the students the tools to find the resources and had them share the resources they found with other students.  He allowed is students to become self sustaining learners where they could choose the best method for them that allowed them to learn the skill.

There is an emerging trend in education to flip the classroom.  It involves giving the content to students while at home and helping them with homework while in the classroom.

Changing the model from 90% content delivery to 90% application of concepts in a math classroom.

This movement started with the Kahn Academy as reviewed on an NPR report on how videos can flip the classroom.

Kahn Academy

Is YouTube making us smarter?

 PBS idea channel

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell http://gladwell.com/

The author examines how we make split second decisions. Sometimes they are very helpful in survival and other times they give us very distorted information that clouds our judgement. In some cases like emergency rooms its important to focus on a few specifice pieces of information and ignore the true but useless pieces of information. In other cases there is a bias in hiring management people who are taller. The height bias overshadows the objective measures in compentancy and can lead to problems. He also illustrates how orchestras do blind auditions. The person plays the instrument behind a screen and the quality of the playing and not the look of the person is evaluated.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about thinking on an unconscious level 8 min. 

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

 

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm applies the science of epidemiology to understanding how connectors in society facilitate rapid change. How did Hush Puppies change from old fashioned to cool? How did the destruction of a low income housing project result in an increase in the distribution of STD's in a city. A very few people in society have a disproportionate ability to make change and this book examines why. It also provides a roadmap for others attempting change with limited resources.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about the Tipping Point for communities in Minnesota

The book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference is available from Amazon.com.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

What are the roots of successful people. In some cases such as the Beatles, it involves 10,000 hours of practice in a club in Hamburg, Germany. In other cases the culture of an individual will predict whether they make a good member of a flight crew. The simple words to describe numbers in Asian cultures allow for more rapid assimulation of math than in English speaking countries. In some cases, the time that you went to school, the month you were born or the time you enter the job market determines your success.

Malcolm Gladwell describes the 10 year evolution that resulted in the success of Fleetwood Mac.

 Success comes slowly.  We are far too impatient with people.  It takes 10 years or 10,000 hours to become really good at something.

The book, Outliers: The Story of Success is available from Amazon.com.

Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman describes the emerging evidence of how our brains interconnect with other individuals when we interact socially.  He offers explanations why a person with a negative outlook can change the brain patterns of every person in a meeting.  

Short Video - less than 5 minutes

Longer video

The book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships is available from Amazon.com

The Ape in the Corner Office by Richard Conniff

The Ape in the Corner Office by Richard Conniff is a naturalists perspective on human behaviors in the office. It is a darkly humorous counter point to the more orderly corporate world described in Daniel Coleman's book Emotional Intelligence at Work.   He compares the air kissing that upper class women often do in social events to similar behaviors in female primates.

He has also written several books including, Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals

The book, The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature is available from Amazon.com

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman  provides a guidebook for keeping emotions in check at work and allowing yourself to stay employed.  Emotional outbursts at work due to frustration can cost people their careers.   He describes five basic skills needed to be successful. 

1. Self awareness - know yourself to keep in tune with your values
2. Manage emotions in situations where there is fear or frustration
3. Motivation: Can you stick to a task and push past points of frustrations when things do not go well.
4. Possess empathy and understand what a person is feeling without them verbally expressing an emotion
5. Social skills - handling yourself in social relationships.

Unlike IQ which is a bit more static.  Emotional intelligence can improve with age and experience.  It is often a better indicator of performance than technical skills with individuals in higher level management positions.

The book offers a good description on the parts of the brain that serve different functions in controlling an regulating emotions. 

Emotional Intelligence explained - 6 minutes

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglass Adams

My favorite fiction author is Douglas Adams. This anthology of the Hitchhicker's Guide to the galaxy is an excellent addition to the science fiction and humor library. It is one of the few books that cause me to laugh out loud while reading them. One of my regrets in life was a missed opportunity to meet Mr. Adams when he appeared at the U of Minnesota.  He died a few years later of a sudden exercise induced heart attack.

Douglas Adams on David Letterman

Big Thinker's Douglass Adams

The book was made into a movie by Walt Disney.  The movie's pace was a bit slow.  I liked the BBC audio version that played as a serial on Public Radio in the late 1970's.

The book, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is available from Amazon.com.

Natural Disasters that Changed the World by Rodney Castleden

Natural Disasters that Changed the world by Rodney Castleden

Rodney Castleden is a prolific British author who has written a series of books about people, events, natural disasters, inventions and conflicts that have changed the world. Typically two to six pages are devoted to each person or event. The events and natural disasters are listed in chronological order. The books offer a broad look at the major influences on our world. Each one of the articles provides enough information to stimulate further research into the topic.

The book on natural disasters serves as a primer for risk managers for large construction projects. It also lists the most significant events in terms of lives lost. A significant number of these events have been due to floods in China with diseases such as flu and plague also contributing. The inclusion of eye witness accounts to the Tunguska event was also an unexpected gem. An index at the front of the book would be a welcome addition.

Carl Sagan's explanation of the Tunguska Event

The book, Natural Disasters That Changed the World is available from Amazon.com.

Earth by the Daily Show

Jon Stewart and the Daily Show writers are at satire again.  Their most recent book, Earth, provides a helpful guide to the human race for aliens seeing our planet for the first time.  It is  set in a future where the planet is no longer inhabited.  The book is relentlessly pessimistic.  It is an excellent complement to the earlier satire on American History. 

The neighborhood - Our solar system 

The book, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race is available from Amazon.com 

Brain Rules by John Medina

Brain Rules by John Medina

The author provides information about the way humans learn. For example scents can enhance recall of information up to 30 percent depending on the type of information stored. People learn better when they are happy and playing rather than stressed. Spaced repetition is the key to improved recall of information. The author also describes individuals with brain damage and the insights note from these cases. The book is very readable and covers topics such as differences in male and female brains. It is a good book for educators to read.

Exercise boosts brain power - 4 minutes

 Curiosity

The book, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School is available from Amazon.com

Physics for Future Presidents by Richard A. Muller

Physics for Future Presidents by UC Berkley Professor Richard A. Muller

This book and a companion one for physics students provides a solid introduction to physics for the general population. Its required reading for individuals attempting to understand the physics behind public policy decisions. Topics include nuclear weapons, nuclear power, climate change, biofuels and other relevant topics. He makes an effort to provide a balanced view of each topic.  A video series of his 26 lectures Physics10 from 2006 are posted on the UC Berkley YouTube website.

He has a new book, Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines published in 2012.  He was a former climate change sceptic but changed his mind based on an exhaustive analysis of the current historical temperature data. This is his New York Times opinion piece "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic" published in July of 2012.  The best match for the temperature change data over the past 250 years is a combination of  changes in carbon dioxide levels and incidents of volcanic activity. 

http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/

An interview with Richard Muller on CNN in 2012.  He advocates switching from coal to methane to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1/3rd.

The book, Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines is available from Amazon.com

Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum describes the birth of New York Cities' forensic crime lab in the first third of the 20th Century.  The book is organized in rough chronological order with each chapter focused primarily on one poison. 

The book chronicles the struggle of the cities first professional medical examiner, Charles Norris and his toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, to develop wet chemistry methods to determine the cause of death from poisoning.  They also used the appearance of the body as a clue to the type of poisoning, such as the red cherry lips from carbon monoxide poisoning.  It's an excellent book for a student in occupational health or toxicology as the health effects of the poisons are well described.  Murder mystery fans may also like it for the investigation into the mysterious deaths. 

PBS also has interactive graphic novel that allows people to experience the medical examiner's work.   

I was not aware that people were so desperate for alcohol during prohibition that they drank methyl alcohol or denatured ethyl alcohol.  The chemicals used to denature ethyl alcohol were also very toxic as authorities attempted to make redistillation of the denatured alcohol difficult.

The book, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York is available from Amazon.com

Difficult Conversations by Stone, Patton and Heen

Difficult Conversations by Douglass Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen from the Harvard Business School provides valuable information on how to proceed through difficult conversations.  The central key is to really listen with respect to the other person and attempt  to fully understand their point of view prior to shoving your opinion down their throat.  The latter strategy is not very effective in changing someone's mind and often results in increased resistance. The best conversations start with a goal of better understanding rather than forcefully offering an opinion prior to obtaining proper background information. 

Lauren Mackler From the Harvard Business school recommends getting a reality check rather than assuming.  Controlling the emotional tone to reduce defensiveness. Talking from an I perspective rather than a You perspective and avoid 'shoulding' on people.  Use the phrase "have you considered" instead. 

The book, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most  is available from Amazon.com

Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner explore topics such as the measuring the incentives to cheat in Sumo wrestling.  Examining how data can be used to show how teachers cheat to improve their student's grades on standardized tests. 



Cheating in Chicago Public Schools

The book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) is available from Amazon.com.

Super Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner

Super Freakonomics by Seven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

An economist and journalist discuss everyday topics and apply economic principles.  I found the discussion of alternative methods to control global warming to be of interest.  I presented a blog post GeoEngineering Setting the World's Thermostat.  Stephen Salters designed a solar powered device to push saltwater spray up into the air to increase the reflectiveness of water to reduce the surface temperature of the planet. 

John Latham and Stephen Salter

The book, Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance is available from Amazon.com.





Adapt by Tim Hartford

The book Adapt - Why Success Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford explores the need to fail and learn from failure before success is possible.  This book reinforces that receiving constructive feedback is a gift that helps us improve.  

Tim Hartford lays out the painful lessons learned and maybe not learned from the war in Vietnam and how this influenced the change in strategy in Iraq post Donald Rumsfeld.  He also examines the willingness of the choreographer, Twyla Tharpe to accept the criticism of her recent work and use that information to improve her production.  She is a very successful choreographer and could have arrogantly assumed that she new better. 

In a separate book about screenwriting an author notes that heroes change and adapt to overcome obstacles. Villains stay the same and die.  This is true of organizations, institutions and creative people.  



Tim Hartford - Why We Need to Fail

The book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure is available from Amazon.com.

Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein

Nudge by Richard Thayler and Cass Sunstein provides a guide to helping people make good decisions with the least amount of effort. They advocate a benevolent paternalism which makes people opt out rather than opt in to decisions that will probably make the most sense for them. As an example: People can opt out of an emergency texting system on campus if they would like to. The default setting is to opt in. That increases the amount of participation in the emergency program. There are shades of a "Brave New World" in this methodology. It is a good read for individuals hoping to implement public policy.

Richard Thayler on Nudge and choice architecture.

The book,  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness is available from Amazon.com