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September 2, 2008

"looming financial catastrophe"

Somehow, I happened on the blog of Michael "Mish" Shedlock - everything must be taken with a grain of salt, of course, but I think a lot of his analysis is spot on. I've also started following some articles on http://seekingalpha.com/ as I try to make sense of the current investment climate.

Being in the middle-class, capital preservation is very important in volatile times - otherwise there will be nothing to invest when the market rebounds.

Mish often talks of deflation and an "L"-shaped recession (or depression). Him and others (i.e. this article) has me very nervous... are we screwed?


This above picture linked from here.

May 21, 2008

Wil Wheaton: Just a Geek

Zack had been prompting me to read this for some time, so I took it with on my trip to Texas last week. It turned out to be very easy and engaging reading and I finished it on the flight down. Reading Wil's blog entries and then his own commentary on the blogs was interesting. I have found a very similiar duality or "show" which occurs in my own writing.

When I first started this blog, I was writing it for me - my earliest entries are intimate, revealing, and sometimes "inappropriate." As my audience appeared and it became clear that Eriko, my parents, my siblings, and other relatives were reading the blog I found myself altering the type of content and presentation.

No longer do I write an entry as a stream of consciousness in a vacuum - I'm very aware of the "audience" watching. At the same time, my life has changed so much, most of my content has become less brash; there is no need for such bravado - gone are the days of political and international conspiracy theories (who has time for that), the partying (day after is too painful), and the women (one is very much enough, thank you).

My entries are focused on career and my family. I find it fitting that this matched Wil's transition as well - he is my role model for the "goals" page on nick.org.

October 26, 2007

Douglas Adams:Restaraunt at the End of the Universe

The quartet continues in the zany tradition!

August 24, 2007

Douglas Adams:Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything: Forty-two.

Now what was the actual question, again?

July 25, 2007

William Gibson: Neuromancer

Wow. I'm going to have to think about this one for a while to understand exactly what I read. Several people have commented on how great the book was, but I just found it a bit strange.

July 8, 2007

Gopnik, Meltzoff, Kuhl: The Scientist in the Crib - Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn

June 23, 2007

Orson Scott Card:Shadow of the Giant

I doubled-down in reading this book; once again, if you can get past the fact that the main characters are all 16-year old super-geniuses (some whom have become Emperor of China, Caliph of Islam, or Goddess of India) then the descriptions of countries warring against each other is believable, maybe. There is a real transformation of the Peter Wiggin character - which has to be done to keep the flavor of the series. Card is rumored to be writing a sequel to this and the Ender series. Despite my lackluster rating, I am in to deep to not continue reading.

June 14, 2007

Ian Fleming: Casino Royale

The recent movie inspired me to read Fleming's original Bond classic. Unfortunately, I was a bit tainted as I had already watched the movie. The book was reasonable, but I didn't particularly care for the French that was used often to describe the places and for fancy quips between characters.

The movie stay relatively true to the book but there were some subtle yet significant twists. It was also slightly modernized to reflect the current world political situation as one would expect. The wikipedia list of differences is here.

It is worth noting that I'm far too tainted in general from watching all of the Bond flicks to linkely be able to enjoy any of Ian's books. Unless he wrote some that weren't made into movies, I will likely end up anticipating the story and not reading for enjoyment.

June 9, 2007

Kaye A. Thomas: Consider your Options

I read the 2000 edition from the library, but there is a 2007 edition available. The book provides an overview of ISOs, NQOs, ESPP, and ATM (along with a few other topics.) There is enough here to cause any interested individual to feel a strong need to call a competent tax accountant.

I will be giving my dad's accountant, Jeffery Bowles, a call very soon.

A quick rant about AMT - what a mess. From here, "Because the AMT was not indexed for inflation, its reach has expanded annually, delivering a significant tax increase this spring to an estimated 4 million households. The AMT would have spread even more rapidly after President Bush's tax cuts reduced taxpayers' normal bills, but Congress enacted yearly "patches" to restrain its growth. The most recent patch expired in December, and unless Congress acts, the tax is projected to strike more than 23 million households next spring, many of them earning as little as $50,000 a year."

May 6, 2007

Orson Scott Card: Shadow Puppets

This is the 3rd book in the Ender Shadow series, which centers around Bean. I still struggle to bond with Bean, the genetically manipulated child genius - and I was not at all moved by the romance that occurred between him and Petra.

I have one book left in this series to finish. Card's books are light and easily readable but I haven't enjoyed them enough to want to read them again.

April 8, 2007

George Orwell: 1984

This is the classic tale of a totalitarian regime, taken to the utmost extreme. At times it was hard to get through, but strangely fascinating.

March 19, 2007

The Economist : February 24th - March 2nd, 2007

I finished reading this while on the plane(s) from Seattle to Moscow.

There was a 10-page (or so) feature section on off-shore banking centers. Wow - there's a lot of people with a lot of money. Speaking people with money, politics is so mixed up with money today that even Mr. Smith would be crooked.

March 3, 2007

The Economist : February 17th-23rd, 2007

February 24, 2007

The Economist : February 10th-16th, 2007

January 3, 2007

Tom Clancy : Red Storm Rising

December 27, 2006

Orson Scott Card : The Shadow of the Hegemon

December 5, 2006

C. Northcote Parkinson : Parkinson's Law

November 24, 2006

Orson Scott Card : Ender's Shadow

November 22, 2006

Orson Scott Card : Children of the Mind

October 26, 2006

Bill Byrson : A Short History of Nearly Everything

October 6, 2006

Orson Scott Card : Speaker for the Dead

August 18, 2006

Orson Scott Card : Ender's Game

July 16, 2006

Mitch Albom : the five people you meet in heaven

July 12, 2006

Mitch Albom : tuesdays with Morrie

Thomas L. Friedman : The World is Flat

March 23, 2006

Steven D. Levitt : Freakonomics

Patrick Lencioni : The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

March 19, 2006

Stephen R. Covey : The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

March 2, 2006

Noam Chomsky : Imperial ambitions: conversations on the post-9/11 world

February 28, 2006

Philip K. Dick : Do androids dream of electric sheep?

February 19, 2006

Tracy Kidder : Hometown

January 15, 2006

David Cottrell : Monday Morning Leadership

January 14, 2006

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson : The One Minute Manager

January 10, 2006

Maria Augusta Trapp : The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

December 29, 2005

Steve Farrar : King Me

December 5, 2005

William Bonner with Addison Wiggin : Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century

November 24, 2005

Patrick Lencioni : The Five Temptations of a CEO

November 22, 2005

Patrick Lencioni : The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

November 17, 2005

Spencer Johnson, M.D. : Who Moved My Cheese?

September 8, 2005

Dan Brown : Deception Point

August 24, 2005

Margaret Mitchell : Gone with the Wind

July 28, 2005

David Guterson : Snow Falling on Cedars

April 1, 2005

Robert Kaplow : The Cat Who Killed Lilian Jackson Braun

December 20, 2004

Douglas Coupland : microserfs

November 13, 2004

William Goldman : The Princess Bride

November 7, 2004

Jane Condon : A Half Step Behind

October 31, 2004

W. Richard Stevens : Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

October 10, 2004

Various : Infectious Greed

September 15, 2004

Mario Puzo : The Godfather

September 6, 2004

Yukio Mishima : Spring Snow

August 29, 2004

Mario Puzo : Fools Die

April 25, 2004

Haruki Murakami : Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of The World

April 11, 2004

Donald E. Knuth : Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

March 1, 2004

Miyamoto Musashi : A Book of Five Rings

About Reading

This page contains an archive of all entries posted to nick.org in the Reading category. They are listed from oldest to newest.

Money is the previous category.

Technical is the next category.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.