Book Report: Cloudsplitter

I just finished Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks. It tells the story of abolitionist John Brown from the point of view of is son Owen. You can get salient links from the Wikipedia page. It's a monster book - 758 pages - that I was reading on and off for a couple months. I'm not sure I have a ton to say about it that isn't included here or here.

I liked it because it covered a historical subject that I had learned about from US History classes in high school and college but really paints the scene of how society worked and the motivations that (perhaps) could have been the cause of such an important piece of our history.

Oh give me a home....

Every time I either drive or fly in and out of Los Angeles I think about moving. I grew up in a small town and being surrounded by so many people and so much stuff can be kind of clausterphobic. Plus it's hard to imagine having a family here. And houses cost a LOT of money. So I was interested when Barry Ritholtz (an investment professional cum financial blogger) commented on a site at Forbes about where Americans are moving (using IRS data).





(Look, people move to LA from the east coast and then from LA to the South and the west coast).

This tool would be a great compliment to Richard Florida's "Who's Your City" website (and book too, although I haven't read it). Choosing where to live is a multi-dimensional problem that is hard to contemplate. These sites are a great start.

Somewhat randomly the Wikipedia entry on Who's Your City says that my boy Tim Harford has been critical of the book. This couldn't be verified because Wikipedia's source was an article in Canadian Geographer (which I don't have access to) and the only mention I could find was Tim referencing Florida's work.

I want to FlyAway

At one point I thought I had posted about a trip I took on the Metro from Pasadena to El Segundo but it's still sitting in my 'not completed' file. That trip consisted of the Gold Line, Red Line, Blue Line, to the Green. Which was cool because I got to go through Union Station, the 7th Street Metro Center, and the Rosa Parks station. The uncool part was that it took about 1.5 hours and required a separate ticket for each hop (although now I find out they have day passes). Obligatory Metro link.

Today I had a similar mission: get from downtown to the SouthBay. I could have done a similar trip but I wanted to try something I had only read about called the FlyAway bus service. It is operated by Los Angeles Regional Airports and consists of shuttles that go from all the regions airports to Union Station and other population centers. My experience was great. I asked some very nice people at Union Station where the kiosk was and after a short walk and seven dollars I had a ticket in my hand. Buses leave every half hour and although the driver told us that the trip would be longer because it was rush hour it only ended up taking about 35 minutes (and even went over my second favorite interchange: 110 south to 105 west carpool lane - booyah!). I waited longer for my friends to pick me up at the Southwest terminal.

Map of where the FlyAway kiosk is:


View Los Angeles Union Station in a larger map

Also here's are a couple of ideas: how about taking and rating all the different transportation agencies in Southern California? Or how about some enterprising young programmer puts a database together of all the timetables of said agencies along with the cost for different hops and transfers and walking times, uses a little Dijkstra magic, and figures out routes that are either cheapest or fastest (or better yet let you weight each). Kind of like the Metro Trip Planner but cool and useful. Has GoogleMaps done this yet? Actually, can I have that job? Thanks...

Stupid video link even though the stupid record company won't allow embeds

Book Report: The Four Pillars of Investing

I just finished an excellent book on investing: The Four Pillars of Investing, by William J. Bernstein. His style is very engaging, especially for a subject that is inherently technical. There are a lot of ideas and I especially like learning about the theory of investing (pillar 1). Here's a brief synopsis of the pillars:

Pillar 1: The Theory of Investing

Risk and reward are inexorably linked no matter what the asset class (stocks, bonds, etc.) and it is relatively easy to determine long term expected returns. Results touted by money managers and mutual funds are almost all due to luck, not to skill. Portfolio theory and diversification are the names of the game.

Pillar 2: The History of Investing

Markets can become irrational with both optimism and pessimism. As recent events have shown, this boom/bust cycle has not ended (nor will it). And the counter intuitive point "is that at times of great optimism, future returns are the lowest; when things look bleakest, future returns are highest." Just like risk and return predict.

Pillar 3: The Psychology of Investing

The biggest obstacle to success in investing is you the investor, and our nature of of looking for the next Microsoft or lottery ticket. This leads to high trading churn (enriching traders rather than ourselves) and making poor buy/sell decisions.

Pillar 4: The Business of Investing

The incentives of most brokers and mutual fund companies are not aligned with the interests of the investor. They exist to make money - your money.

Investment Strategy: Assembling the Four Pillars

Most small investors are deficient in the areas of theory and psychology. As defined benefit plans (pensions) are being replaced by contribution plans (401k) it is increasingly important for 'average investors' to educate themselves on investing.

Book Report: The Virginian

My fourth book of 2010 was The Virginian, by Owen Wister (free ebook!). Self proclaimed "The Most Famous Western Novel Ever Written." The copy I had was published in 1970 but it was originally published in 1902. Accordingly the dialogue is a bit hard to follow. However this really is an excellent book. Wikipedia tells me that "the character is seen as the first real cowboy character that has set the standard for the cowboy character stereotype. The book is seen as one of the first great western novels about cowboys."

An instructive lesson was to do a cursory look at the old US history book (aka Wikipedia) to find out what was going on in the country. We had exited the gilded age and in the early 1890's suffered through a long depression (worst in the country at that time). Our president (McKinley) had just been assassinated and Teddy Roosevelt (the author's friend) had just been sworn in. A tumultuous time to say the least.

With that in mind I thought there were a number of interesting quotes that really resonated with both my personal beliefs and current events:

I have thought that matter of dress and speech should not carry with them so much distrust in our democracy. (p. 25)

I know a man that mostly wins at cyards. I know a man that mostly loses. He says it is his luck. All right. Call it his luck. I know a man that works hard and he's gettin' rich, and I know another that works hard and is gettin' poor. He says it is his luck. All right. Call it his luck. I looked around and I see folks movin' up or movin' down, winners or losers everywhere. All luck, of course. But since folks can be born that different in their luck, where's your equality? No, seh! call your failure luck, or call it laziness, wander around the words, prospect all yu' mind to, and yu'll come out the same old trail of inequaility." He paused for a moment and look at her. "Some holds four aces," he went on, "and some holds nothin', and some poor fello' gets the aces and no show to play 'em; but a man has got to prove himself my equal before I'll believe him." (p. 103)

Now cyards are only one o' the manifestations of poker in this hyeh world. One o' the shapes yu' fool with it in when the day's work is oveh. If a man is built like that Prince boy was built (and it's away down deep beyond brains), he'll play winnin' poker with whatever hand he's holdin' when the trouble begins. Maybe it will be a mean, triflin' army, or an empty six-shoter, or a lame hawss, or maybe just nothin' but his natural countenance. Most any old thing will do for a fello' like that Prince boy to play poker with. (p. 111)

"It's might hard to do what your neighbors ain't doin." (p. 137)

"Anthing a man's bread and butter depends on, he's going to care about." (p. 138)

"It is not praying nor preaching that has ever caught me and made me ashamed of myself, but one or two people I have knowed that never said a superior word to me. They thought more o' me than I deserved, and that made me behave better than I naturally wanted to." (p. 152)

"As for salvation, I have got this far; somebody," he swept an arm at the sunset and the mountains, "must have made all that, I know. But I know one more thing I would tell Him to His face: if I can't do nothing long enough and good enough to earn eternal happiness, I can't do nothing long enough and bad enough to be damned. I reckon He plays a square game with us if He plays at all, and I ain't bothering my haid about other worlds." (p. 157)

The latter half of the book deals more with how the plot unravels so unfortunately no more quotes that I wrote down. Until next book!

Book Report: Outliers

Everyone has heard of Outliers. If you haven't, you might actually be an Outlier. HEYO! Anyway, I was reading a post about becoming an expert, by Penelope Trunk. Penelope links to a couple posts. And although Penelope's post and links have more to do with the first part of Outliers (Opportunity) none of them discussed the book at all. And it would have been interesting if those articles explored the Legacy aspect the way Gladwell does.

Aaaaaaaaaanywho.......

The part about Outliers that was the least accessible to me was his quote from Matthew at the VERY beginning of the book:

Matthew 25:29 - "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

This quote did not make much sense to me so I asked my cousin if he could expound. Which he did with aplomb:

The verse comes at the end of a parable that Jesus tells called “the parable of the talents”. In brief, a master leaves 3 men in charge of a great deal of money (a ‘talent’ may be the equivalent of 20 years of wages, so in other words, a boat load of cash. This is important because it is not about ‘natural talents’.) (for a modern translation, read: this [sic]).

To one guy he leaves 5 talents, to the second 2 talents, and the third 1 talent. The first two dudes double the money, but the last guy takes the money and hides it in a hole. He’s worried that the master will be mad if he looses any, so when the master comes back, he gives all of the money back, down to the last cent.

Well, that pisses the master off, and the master takes the money and gives it to the guy who has done really well, leaving the the 3rd guy with nothing. Which leads to the verse in question.

Why is the master so upset? He got his money back. Well, technically the 3rd guy did ‘less than the least’. The ‘least’ he could have done was taken the money to the bank and collected interest. But he didn’t even do that. Instead he operated from a place of fear, and the explanation point for Jesus here is that that is the real sin. (side note: the end of the story talks about “throwing the 3rd guy out into the outer darkness”. Its tempting as modern readers to read that as “the third guy” or “people who fail” go to hell. Not the case. Jesus is saying that the fear itself needs to be cast out. But, this is getting off topic.)

Why it works for Gladwell: His book isn’t about people born extraordinary. Bill Gates wasn’t born a computer genius, he was born in a very specific window of time in history and had extraordinary access to technology at a critical age. BUT, he also worked. Hard. 10,000 hours. The first two guys in the story above take what they have, whatever it is, and work. Plain and simple. The third guy does not work. He doesn’t do anything.

The message I most take from Gladwell (and Jesus), is that it is the opportunity directly in front of us that matters. Not the pie in the sky what-ifs, but making the most of what you have each day. And, as ‘proven’ by the 10,000 hours theory, hard will will repay itself. Exactly like Jesus said it would.

Book Report: The Return of Depression Economics

I'm testing a new feature here at Nacho Lovers Anonymous, cataloging the books I read throughout 2010. A friend of mine made a resolution to read 25 books in 2010. I thought that was a good number. I actually like 26 better (a book every 2 weeks) but let's not quibble over details. So in addition to my previous resolutions (which, as it turns out, isn't such a great idea) let's add "read 26 books".

My first book of 2010 was The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. For those who have never heard of him, I apologize. For those who dislike him, I'm not sure I like you. And for those who know and like him this post will be relatively meaningless since I don't have anything of substance to add to any of his topics.

In addition to his work as an economist Paul is a columnist and blogger for the New York Times, with an article entitled Conscience of a Liberal (an interesting sidenote is that while his is very liberal and progressive, Times' policy does not allow him to endorse political candidates). I read the blog regularly and have read a couple of his other books. His writing is clear, concise, and persuasive. He makes the subject of economics extremely interesting (at least for this humble blogger), in addition to offering keen insights to other parts of the political spectrum (especially health care).

Here's a quick book review, another from the UK, and an interesting video of a talk he did recently about the book.

Maybe New Year's Resolutions aren't such a good idea

Okay, so maybe it's not such a bad idea that I didn't write a post about my New Year's Resolutions. Turns out that they are really hard to keep. One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, did all the research here. These are her takeaways:

1. Start Small
   
2. Think in Increments of Three Weeks
   
3. Get the Wording Right
   
4. Visualize what you will look like
   
5. Forget New Year's day. Start now
   

9 Big Ideas from Marci Alboher

In my constant quest for self discovery, I've been reading a lot lately. My first "Big Ideas" post was about Randy's Pausch's book 'The Last Lecture' (and mustaches). The latest book I finished was Marci Alboher's 'One Person/Multiple Careers: How the "Slash Effect" Can Work For You: A New Model For Work/Life Success' (Full disclosure: I actually started reading 'Your Money or Your Life' but felt like their ideas were too rigid for me and returned it to the library).

So unlike 'Your Money or Your Life', I finished 'One Person/Multiple Careers'. I'm glad I did because it was informative and inspiring to read about many different people who were able to find much more fulfillment in life by blending different types of jobs, volunteer activities, or interests. Which is basically where I (and many people I know) are at right now. At least the cool ones.

Part I: A Slash Career: Getting Started

Interesting side note: Marci spends no time defining the "slash effect" or addressing the idea that EVERYONE has multiple facets to their personality, including what the do for money, for joy, or for other people. For me, this book was about realizing that the different slashes of a person don't necessarily have to be compartmentalized. Or that everyone is beholden to the system of being defined by a job or needing to work a 40 hour/week job to have a career or be 'successful'. Or even having a stock answer to the question "So what do you do?"

Chapter 1: Begin, Improve, Reinvent. Repeat

Slashes are usually entrepreneurial, are required to constantly tinker and adapt to changes and new beginnings, and generally follow a different path.

Chapter 2: Slash Breeding Grounds: Starter Professions, Volunteering, Passions, and Detours

It isn't bad to have learned something and then decide that you want to do less of it, or none of it. Even unrelated slashes you try later can benefit from your starter profession

Chapter 3: Thinking Like a Modern Moonlighter

There are many different ways of incorporating slashes depending on how you want to structure your life. I'm working on the "job plus entrepreneur" model to work part-time and do something else part-time.

Chapter 4: Writing, Teaching, Thinking, and Consulting: Four Slashes That Go With Anything

I think teaching would be super fun.

Chapter 5: Anatomy of a Slash Combination: An Exercise

Thinking about anchors and orbiters is an interesting way of changing what you do so that different activities are balanced. For instance, my job is an anchor to me because I am paying back a 401k loan and get health insurance. But it could become an orbiter if I could get external insurance and pay back the loan.

Part II: Succeeding in a Slash Life

Chapter 6: Presenting Yourself: Introductions, Resumes, Business Cards, and More

A slash identity should be actively cultivated.

Chapter 7: Synergies, Leveraging, and the Power of Incongruous Combinations

"Always work to turn anything that could be a handicap into an advantage."

Chapter 8: Working the Twenty-First-Century Workplace

There are a plethora of flexible work options - both on the company books and customizations, but it is imperative that your supervisor is on board. Being a high performer doesn't hurt.

Chapter 9: Overcoming Overload, Naysayers, and Other Slash Stumbling Blocks

Developing systems to keep yourself focused and responsible is the key to creating a work/life balance such that work doesn't feel like work.

Chapter 10: Special Considerations of Parent Slashes

Why only 9 ideas? Because I didn't even read this section.

5 Big Ideas from Randy Pausch

So I'm at a bit of a crossroads. Don't know where life is going, dislike work, don't know what to do, don't want to waste my life, etc. So I'm reading a lot. A LOT. The latest I've read is The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, a former Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon who died just over a year ago from pancreatic cancer. Also, the CMU homepage has a picture of an Indian professor (Pradeep K. Khosla) with a totally sweet mustache.



Anyway, here are the 5 salient quotes that I wrote down as I was reading them.

"When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better." Page 37. This especially hits home because at my last performance review my manager told me that one piece of feedback about me from my 'raters' was that I need to do more analysis projects. I asked him if he could elaborate. He could not but said he would get back to me. 4 months ago. Now, if I was truly interested I would have pestered him, or asked some of the people who I suspect rated me. But that hasn't happened. Which is just as telling as the fact that I have never gotten that advice in person.

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something." Page 79. Right now I feel like I am surrounded by brick walls, and either don't know what I want or don't know how badly I want it or don't know how to A) scale the wall or B) knock it down.

"Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won't make us happier." Page 139. I complain too much.

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." Page 148. And luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Kind of cheesy but that doesn't mean it's false. And a reminder that we rarely ever get what we 'want' (or that what we want is what we need).

"If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves?" Page 160. Don't be scared to try something new unless it happens to be in Yellowstone.


Pausch also describes his life in terms of achieving childhood dreams. But I think that is a pretty simplistic way of looking at life. Which I guess is the point of the book but still doesn't really resonate too much with me (maybe because I don't remember any of my childhood dreams?). That being said, I lost my dad when I was in college so parts of the book were extremely moving to me and I really did feel like it was a very inspirational story about how he lived his life.