Bookwi.se

Takeaway: Innovation occurs at the intersection of different fields of study.

My wife originally told me about this book.  She saw the author speak at last year’s Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.  It is an interesting book. If you like random facts and good stories and enjoy the writing of Malcom Gladwell or Chris Anderson, you will like Medici Effect.

The basic thesis is that we need to encourage innovation by encouraging people of different backgrounds and fields of study to work together.  So an architect in Africa created a new system for cooling a building because he knew he could not rely on the electricity intensive standard air conditioning system. So he found out about how giant termite mounds keep precise temperatures and incorporated those insights into the build’s design and was able to cool the building with less than 10 percent of the energy costs of a regular air conditioning system.

Here is a video I saw today that is not in the book, but is a great example of innovation.  Using soda bottles to provide light in impoverished communities.

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Summary: Real evil isn’t the villains, it is the accountants/consultants behind the villains

About 6 or 7 years ago I was listening to a lot of independent fiction that was read by the authors.  This started with Cory Doctorow but then I found other independent authors that were doing similar things through podiobooks or other sites.

One of the books I remember enjoying was How to Succeed in Evil.  But it seemed to be more of a short story/novella than a fully developed book.  And I remember looking for the next chapter because it seemed like it just ended.  Evidentially, it did just end and McLean or someone else just stopped recording the rest of the book.  As I was scrolling through books that were available to borrow on Lendle, I found a kindle version of How to Succeed in Evil.  I enjoyed it before, I thought I would figure out how the book ended.

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Takeaway: Aquinas is important, an understatement I know.

This is the second book in the Armchair Theologians series that I have read.  I like the idea of a series of short books on theologians or important periods.  It is a mix between Oxford’s Very Short Introduction series and a Dummies handbook.  It actually is pretty intellectually rigorous (or at least Aquinas is) but they are written with the lightness and humor of a dummies book.

christianaudio.com had a sale on the series last week, each book only $5.  So I picked up Aquinas.  I have also read John Calvin.  I liked the Aquinas more than the Calvin book.  Aquinas is a bigger philosophical figure, so it it feels more like a intro to philosophy book than a theology book, although it is clear that Aquinas was doing theology and was concerned with issues of understanding and seeking after God.

Renick clearly enjoyed his task of writing a Dummies style book for Aquinas.  He makes all kinds of jokes (mostly funny) but probably too many dated pop culture references.  This book was written almost 10 years ago, and even then the references were probably a bit dated.  (He has two different references to the dog in the show Fraiser.)  And glancing around at other reviews, it seems that people either liked or hated the humor.

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Takeaway: Protection from terrorism means protection of freedoms

Little Brother is classic Cory Doctorow.  Doctorow is a science fiction writer/free speech advocate/teacher/activist.  He has has worked for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, is one of the founders of Boing Boing.  I have read several of his science fiction books and short stories.  Doctorow is known for his advocacy of free.  He has all of his books available for free download if you want to read it electronically.  I see now that he allows donations for the free books.  I disagreed with his earlier stance of not accepting donation because he wanted people to buy paper copies.  I, and many others, don’t want paper copies, we want digital copies and he had no way to accept income from people that wanted to support his writing.  He also protested against Amazon’s DRM scheme and refused to allow his books on Amazon, but has relented now that Amazon allows for DRM free versions of books if the authors choose.

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