Tag Archives: review

The 2011 Nutshell

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve never been one for massive reviews of the year just gone by – it always seemed somewhat redundant if not impossible to squeeze 365 days into a post – but here’s a few observations of 2011, and some things I’m hoping to look into in 2012.

Obviously 2011 was dominated as far as events go by the massive earthquake of March 11th, and the thousands which followed it and the social questions it triggered. Right now it seems we’re back to ‘normal’ levels of earthquakes. It was all quite surreal. For me, the trip to Iwate to help in some of the tsunami clean up re-enforced how resilient people can be in the face of true tragedy, even the though the continued leaking from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor captured the news headlines.

On a smaller, but also personal note, our family car was written off in July by some person running a red light, but thankfully no one was injured in either vehicle. It also seemed odd that in 2011, hospital staff were complimenting us on having our kids fastened into the appropriate child and baby seat, but it brings home the fact that still in Japan, children are either held by parents (or more usually, grand-parents), or are allowed to wander around the vehicles whilst in motion.

But enough about me.

One thing I have been following was my meagre 25USD Kiva investment, which is now 91% paid back by the Mật Sơn 1- Đông Vệ Group, who I loaned the money to as part of a larger group loan to help their manufacturing business. I’m now going to re-invest that amount into another group, and add another 50USD to my fund and support another group. Right now I’m looking at fishing as well as manufacturing in Asia. I think microloan groups are a worthy investment to help communities grow and support themselves, and since I live in Japan, any money would accrue such tiny interest it’s hardly worth it anyway.

This blog actually hasn’t done too badly this year, going from ~150 to 450 views per month, but it’s a personal thing, so thanks to those people who visit it. Every now and then I think I should spend more time on it, or concentrate on a single vertical, but in truth, I’m interested in a lot of things, so it’s unlikely I could ever settle on one thing. WordPress does let me pull out the five most popular posts of 2011 though, so here they are!

1. Home page
2. Dog Day (犬の日)
3. The Baker and the Bromate
4. Volunteering in Iwate Prefecture
5. New Header Photo: Heads
6. Quakebook

OK, so the home page doesn’t really count I suppose, hence the #6 in there. The Dog Day post I noticed a while ago constantly gets a few views per week, which has convinced me to do a few more articles on perhaps lesser known Japanese cultural traditions. ‘The Baker and the Bromate’ was probably the most researched post I’ve ever done, and I was quite pleased with it; the ‘Volunteering in Iwate’ pretty much wrote itself, and I was pleased to receive a few emails to say it’d helped people prep for their own work there. The new header photo post making the top 5 is probably more of a tribute to Jaume Plensa and his sculpture work – thanks Jaume! Bringing up the top five then was my review of the crowd sourced ‘Quakebook’ which was put together after the quake to get some peoples stories out, and help raise fund for survivors of the tsunami.

I was also quite surprised that two of my posts were mentioned in podcasts – the ‘Baker and the Bromate’ post was on JapanTalk #228, and the slightly more whimsical post about the “City of Ghosts” story was mention by John C. Dvorak on the No Agenda podcast.

Towards the end of the year I decided to give the National Novel Writing Month a go – writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. I’ve written short stories and such over the last five years, but this was a whole new scale of things. As you see from some of the posts, it somewhat took over my life for the month, but I was actually really pleased with what came out, and over the next year I’m hoping to revise it a little bit to make it at least readable and understandable to a third party.

Right at the end of 2011 I stepped in to update the tokyotoyrun.com website at the last minute to upload info for one of our large toy runs, which was the first web coding I’ve done in a very long time – at least it seemed to render OK and no one complained. I think in 2012 I’ll spend a bit more time on the overarching site we’re looking to put these toy runs under, reviewing some old HTML, CSS and JS knowledge, and see how it goes.

So on the whole, 2011 ended a bit more on the upbeat than it was looking at the beginning, but a reminder that the people of Tohoku are going to need support for a very long time, and I hope the Japanese government stop squabbling and mucking about, and actually deals with the issues.

2012 then, should be a good challenge, and I’m looking into new professional qualifications, language tests and whatever else is of interest after the family time and work!

Baby & Child Product Recommendations

Posted on by
Reply

This is a bit of a different post for me, as I delve not only into product recommendations, but product recommendations for babies and small children. As some way of qualifying the following, we bought these products, and they worked for us, through two children, both born and raised in Japan, though you’ll quickly notice these are not Japanese products. These weren’t always the cheapest, and often weren’t the most popular, but we found that for our attitudes and lifestyle, they just worked, and they lasted and they endured the punishment two children and parents often put items through.

Obviously things are quite good in Japan in regards to being able to rent almost anything with regards to children, and often the economics work out, though sometimes they don’t, versus buying items. Also, unlike perhaps the UK or other European and North American countries, the culture of passing things on to friends and so on has only just started to grow, so often we couldn’t pick things up from friends, though we have managed to pass some items off to good homes after our second was finished with them. Anyway, here are five things which really worked for us (most of these were bought 2006-2008):

Stokke Tripp Trapp
Basically it’s a baby high chair, except it can be altered and adjusted to fit kids and adults of all ages. It’s incredibly simple, has no moving parts, requires no awkward strap adjustment, and is based on a simple ‘Z’ design. You can get a high chair with a built in, and often swing over table part, but we often heard tales of banged heads, and that the table part actually placed the baby too far from the family table if they were attempting to feed the baby when everyone else was eating too – which is what our two kids definitely preferred. We looked around, we spoke to friends, and we tested in shops, and ultimately went for the Stokke – it meant the kids could be near the table to feed them, was massively adjustable, easy to clean, simple to make and generally fitted the elegant simplicity I kind of like in products. They’re incredibly well built, and can be put together in minutes by pretty much anyone. I notice now there are quite a few look alikes, many cheaper, but I’d be willing to bet this is still better value for money.

Airbuggy
The search for a pushchair is a fraught one in Japan – prices just seem to have no ceiling, and much is fashion led. When we bought our Airbuggy in 2006, it was one in a corner of Babies R Us, and I think was the only pneumatic tyre three wheeler in the shop. Everyone else was fondling the MacLarens, and eagerly adding accessories. I played with the MacLaren and other small wheeled ones, and decided that when on smooth concrete and in shopping malls, they’d be great, but we knew we liked ‘off road’ – old paths, the big parks, the beach, the mountains, grass, the fun places for kids. A four mini wheel wouldn’t cut it for us, and we risked the AirBuggy. We never regretted it. In truth we had a problem with the frame after one year – we mailed the company a photo, not expecting anything out of warranty, but they replaced the frame with no questions. Also, they provided much cheaper accessories and support generally. As we glided down small stone and sand paths as solid wheeled Combis dug grooves and were pushed by out of breath parents, it became apparent the extra size and weight of an Airbuggy was a small trade off since the weight when pushing it was much less thanks to having real wheels and tyres. One thing though – especially with foreign baby cars – make sure they fit through a Japanese train station ticket gate. Though AirBuggy has Japan based models, ours was an early one, and only fitted through the wider gates. Not a huge issue, but something to remember. (And yes, pretty much every manufacturer now has a 3 wheel version!).

Baby Bjorn Carrier
When baby is tiny of course, you need something secure to hold them in, as you may be a nervous parent yourself. We looked at a whole pile of carriers in several shops, and basically they break down into front carriers (I suppose ‘dakko carriers’ in Japan) and rear carriers (‘onbu’ ones). There are pro’s and con’s to both and many parents have almost fanboy (fanmother?) devotion to them. We went for a Baby Bjorn front carrier. We decided the padding and adjusters were good more mother – father – and child (I couldn’t get some carriers on). My wife preferred a front carrier as she was concerned at not being able to see the child behind obviously, but also that her hair would get in the baby’s face.

Flexa Bed
As they get bigger and need a bed over a cot, you want something which will last a few years, but something which will be safe whilst they’re still flailing around at night. Again, we looked and looked, and in the end found a small shop selling these (oddly Flexa don’t seem to mention Japan on their international site at the moment). The Flexa system is, as it’s name implies, designed to be flexible – you can all fences to the bed, then later add stilts to make a bunk-bed, or a study desk space, even add a slide. It’s all thick solid wood too, but easy to home assemble – and disassemble and re-assemble as I found when we moved! Again, you pay for it, but when we looked at ‘kiddie’ beds, they either looked flimsy, as in the case of most themed ones, or just small or impractical.

Macpac Koala
Sometimes you just don’t want to take a buggy, or cant, and want that flexibility of when the child fitted in the front carrier, but now is far too large for that. This then is a child carrier pack – it’s essentially a state of the art hiking backback, but with a child carrier and some storage built in. I really like this, and we’ve done some excursions where even the AirBuggy would have slowed us down. It’s well padded and adjustable, and we added the sunshade and all containing rain cover too. It makes the child feel much, much lighter, and there’s enough space for some nappies, food and such at the bottom. It also has some supports so it can stand up on the ground as a seat though we always tethered it to something like this, so it couldn’t fall over! It was great for snow trips, walking around hills and ruins and such, and kids love being high up and seeing everything, but without the aches for parents of a prolonged piggy-pag.  I haven’t seen too many people with these in Japan, and indeed I bought mine from New Zealand, but they do have similar ones in some hiking shops (Jimbochou has several shops with them), and I’ve actually been asked a few times by curious fathers, who took notes of the brand and model, so there’s definitely interest here.

So there’s five things we found worked for us – again, totally personal requirements. I could go on about the things which didn’t work for us – for example: the ‘oshiri fuki’ (bum wet wipes) warmer we had recommended to us for use in the winter, which did nothing but dry the wipes out – useless. Some people recommended boiling milk bottles over microwave steaming them. That lasted 2 days as I remember before I was dispatched to get the small microwave container. My parents still wonder why we even entertained the boiling option.

We’d be interested to hear any other good hits, or hilarious misses on baby kit. I think Mrs. Nanikore will write a post at some point (in English and Japanese though) on things which worked for her – or didn’t – much closer to the front line.

Bookshelf: The Four Hour Work Week

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a while since I added anything here on the Bookshelf, though rest assured, I’m always reading something! In fact, I’ve just finished reading Tim Ferriss’s book “The Four Hour Work Week” (4HWW) (he just released another ‘The Four Hour Body”).

The book aims to be a guide to ‘lifestyle design’ and has gained an almost cult following around the world. Much of the premise revolves around the 80/20 rule which Ferriss adheres to, more commonly known as Pareto’s Principle which Ferriss does acknowledge further on in the book. Basically – you can get 80% of things done / achieved (good enough), with 20% of the effort, and the question is whether than last 20% is really worth it. He shows how you can create a business (initially on the side) which is self sustaining, and from which you can increasingly step away from thanks to outsourcing and subcontractors. If you had a 9-5 job, then the key is remote working agreements, and then you can travel and do what you want to do with your life whilst building that product and outsourcing the rest. This is how it’s a four hour work week.

The resulting book, is one third potentially useful and interesting, one third useful if you’re Tim Ferriss or like him, and one third is almost silly, but it’s all entertaining and really is best described as ‘career porn’. That’s what this book is – a product which can generate money without much work from Ferriss now, so he can, and does, outsource routine matters and is living what he says – and in the book he tells you how to do that.

When you look at reviews for the book, those people who slammed it are generally against the ethos – that somehow this is cheating: he ‘won’ a martial arts tournament by dehydrating himself for the weigh in, then boosting back again adding kilos of weight against his opponents and then pretty much just bear hugging them and forcing them out of the ring to win (there’s a few clips on YouTube of this). Ferriss makes the point that he exploited a loophole in the tournament’ rules, and didn’t break them. It’s very much up to the reader, but that a book elicits that kind of response is interesting in itself.

The truth is Ferriss is very smart, and puts his money ostensibly where his mouth is – perhaps the tournament push-outs weren’t in the spirit of the event, but he did turn up and get in the ring, and that takes a bit of skill and guts as it is.

The book is full of links and product recommendations – most links in there smell like product placement, and yes the whole thing smells like an infomercial, but at least it’s a readable ‘reality distortion field’ informercial if nothing else, and again, you’re simply holding a sample of what he’s talking about – it’s about sales – there’s a reason Ferriss won a “Greatest Self Promoter” award and why his Wikipedia page is relatively bare for someone so high profile online – it’s all about sales – the tips in the book can be found elsewhere – he’s wrapped it up, added an angle and sold it. It’s about sales, sales sales, and expertly done.

You might wonder whether I actually liked the book, and ultimately I did, but not because I believe so much in the message of the book – it isn’t for me – but viewed as a sample product, and as an example of what Ferriss is selling it’s very good, and there’s are some good tips and reminders in there, many of which you can apply to many aspects of your life and work.

For a different angle on this type of idea though, I would recommend Gary Veynerchuck’s “Crush It“, 37 Signal’s “Rework“ or David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”.

Quakebook, a review.

Posted on by
2

Out of all the tweets, blog posts, Facebook updates and everything in between, which flew around in the initial couple of weeks following the beginning of the quakes in Japan on March 11th. 2011, something coalesced together – partly intended as a record of note of the event and those affected by it, whether locally or internationally, and partly intended as form of fund-raising effort for those survivors of the tsunami, with the side-effect of raising awareness of what actually happened.

That thing was the #quakebook - “2:46 : Aftershocks : Stories from the Japan Earthquake” brought together by a cadre of essentially Japan based bloggers and Twitter fanatics, led by the most certainly not attention seeking @ourmaninabiko. I say that because even though it’s simple enough to find out who he is, he’s made a keen point with reporters and others not to be named in the media, and largely it seems like they’ve complied.

The book is currently only available as an e-book, for 9.99USD from most versions of Amazon, so I’ve just read mine in a single sitting, taking just a couple of hours.

This has been of interest to me, not just as a form of donation whilst receiving something, but because I myself was in much the same situation as many of the people whose accounts are in there, having been on the 20th floor of an office building in central Tokyo when the quakes began. What @ourmaninabiko and his team has done is capture a cross section of experiences from inside the country and from the outside, looking in. I suspect what I found most interesting were those entries which were not like my experience.

To start off, one of the passages which struck me was that by Andy Heather writing from Kyoto:

“But what hurts is the idea that the earthquakes were like seeing a loved one getting beaten and being unable to stop it.”

One of the topics, certainly in the foreign community, was those who left Japan in the week or two following the M9 quake the – ‘flyjin’ – and one of those was @sandrajapandra / Sandra Barron, who I began to follow on twitter the day after the quake for news and opinion, and who surprised me by announcing she was moving to LA, with obviously mixed emotions. Her account in ‘Aftershocks (’Leaving’) was the first time I realised why she’d left. It’s an interesting and personal debate. (Addendum – I should note she did return to Japan a few weeks later.)

If there’s one thing everyone should know who maybe (fortunately) has not been in that situation where you’re on the fringe of a massive disaster, and with options, is that everyone should do what they feel is right for them. There’s no value in duress or forcing people into a position – things are tense enough as it is.

The book isn’t all Twitter users and bloggers, some of the writers are noted professionals, and it’s worth mentioning their contributions. Truthfully, with Yoko Ono, whilst I appreciate her support, I found her contribution overly self promotional, with little to add.

Jake Adelstein however, a well known true crime writer and reporter in Japan, juxtaposed a case he was reporting on of a (completely not quake related) double suicide in the face of personal debt, against the disaster in Tohoku and the sacrifices people are making there to keep the country safe. For the two debtors, no one in their apartments knew them, no one at work knew them. No one missed them or even claimed their ashes. In Tohoku whole communities sheltering each other in turn. The effect is almost hypnotic, and echoed something I’d wondered about just after the quake – how this would effect Japan’s infamously high suicide rate.That entry, ‘Muenbotoke’ is worth the price of admission.

William Gibson, the cyberpunk freak who probably turned me most on to Tokyo as a brand, contributes something totally Gibson – what is your memory of Tokyo and Japan? A man sitting naked, totally still, on the edge of a table in an open window, as seen by Gibson from a taxi speeding past on a raised expressway. It’s not notably quake related, but perhaps captures the something ‘other’ of Japan.

In all then, it’s a well rounded and a well meaning collection, pulling together many facets of the disaster in one place. In some ways something like this may be worth updating over the years as people look back on the effect the event has had on Japan, and will continue to have.

If there’s a question on the work, it’s that there seems to be few accounts from Japanese in the tsunami hit areas, or from the Fukushima exclusion zone, but given the time frame it was put together, it would’ve been difficult to include these, and still get it out for the world to read I would think. Perhaps in a retrospective in a year or so these will be included.

A paper, and Japanese language version of the book is also in the works.

Overall then, even if you ignore the charitable nature of the work, it’s worth the money and the read to get a feel for what these events do to the people, beyond what the rather dumb and crass mass media has failed to achieve. The brief nature of many accounts actually increases the impact, there’s no time for dwelling, just the basic emotional facts behind an event which took over 20,000 people away in just a few hours, and left a nation digging it’s heels in for years to come.

Bookshelf: The Diamond Age

Posted on by
Reply

Or, to give it it’s full name “The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer”.

The full title actually encompasses the story a little better.

I seem to be reading Neal Stephenson books in a wrong order – not that they’re in any way connected in the narrative though.  First I read the seminal ‘Cryptonomicon’ (1999) , then ‘Snow Crash’ (1992),  and now ‘The Diamond Age‘ (1995).

Stylistically then it’s a jump; Cryptonomicon was very smooth, albeit with a slightly flawed last few chapters (though by then, the story you cared about was largely wound up). Snow Crash likely has the best first chapter ever in a sci-fi novel, but then goes off on several tangents before spluttering out. It’s great whilst it works though, and sports the best named main character – ‘Hiro Protagonist’. However, chronologically, you can see Stephenson’s style develop nicely over time.

The Diamond Age’ then, has a bit of both – a strong, yet slightly irrelevant first chapter albeit in the universe, but a much stronger ending, albeit somehow vague. It’s set in a future where there’s a lot of nanotech amongst an almost retro steam-punk society of phyles – the future nations – geographically spread sub-city states, with one of the main ones being the New Atlantis clave, also known as ‘Viccies’ due to their adoption of Victorian dress and behaviour. Basically then, instead of single, contiguous physical countries, all these nations have huge embassies all over the world and almost no central hub.

The plot revolves around an ensemble of characters;  Nell, a small girl whose brother at the outset steals her the titular Illustrated Primer which is itself a illicit copy made by a New Atlantean engineer, the original of which was commissioned by a senior Equity Lord for his daughter.

The book is fully interactive, or ‘ractive’ and over the years Nell learns from it both academically and in many other ways, as it leads her on her own real world journey via the stories it tells, to join the New Atlantean phyle. Conversely, the book’s creator, engineer John Hackworth, a respected man in the Viccie phyle is cast out when his illegal copy is discovered, only to go undercover to understand the reasoning behind events involving Doctor X. the man who performed the copy, his own plans, and the events involving the drummers.

The whole thing works quite well, and draws in the hopes of technologies such as nanotech, and how a sponsored age of plenty could evolve, how whole islands can be programmed and created, down to the failing of artificial intelligence, and the reliance in the ractors of humans by preference for interaction. There’s a subtle undercurrent of the role of family in the novel, but also how children can be raised by technology, or how different people from differing layers of society can have access to similar tech, and evolve differently. Case in point is that Nell is mainly interacting with a single female ractor who becomes a mother figure, with her father in the background. The mouse army are poorer, but saved from certain death, through the Primer identify as a force in the book’s virtual world, and later in the real world, drawing strength from each other. Essentially everyone reacts differently to the Primer and it illustrates the choices make in life.

The book then is well worth the time; there are some diversions – the drummers seem a little illogical at times, but seem to be set up as the anti-Victorian phyle to illustrate Hackworth’s fall as he would have initially seen it, and in his search for the the alchemist, which almost becomes a pure plot device to drive the story. That aside, the historical references, the sheer detail Stephenson goes into really makes the world perhaps more so than SnowCrash. Worth a read.

 

Bookshelf: This Bleeding City

Posted on by
Reply

This is another debut novel – that’s two in a row – but this is in stark contrast to the tech thriller which was Daemon. “This Bleeding City” is the first published novel by Alex Preston, and as an English graduate who became a trader in London, and then went on to become a writer, has a certain parallel and insight to the novel’s main protagonist.

However, given some of the events in the book, I hope much of the events are from observation rather than experience.

The prologue opens as Charlie Wales, the book’s main character,  forgets that his small child is still in his car in the car park as he gets absorbed with his work. He suddenly remembers hours later, and in a panic pitches through the crowds, returning to find his infant son unconscious – and we don’t know whether he lives or dies. This effectively sets the tone for the whole novel.

Set against the recent economic meltdown in the financial markets around the world, it tells the story of Charlie, and his friends Henry and Vero and their journey from their time at university in Edinburgh through unemployed times in London, to Charlie’s rise as an analyst and finally trader for the Silverbirch company, his dropping out for the woman he loves, and his going back again to achieve greater fortune, though that never seems to be enough.

In some ways it’s a character study, amplified through the greed and constant envy amongst the climbing financial markets. Charlie sees himself as being the poor relation both financially and culturally to his friends, he being from a lower middle class family in Worthington, and they from wealthier parts of England, and in Vero’s case, France, and spends much of the novel attempting to climb to the next rung, and as soon as he makes it up one he almost instantly sees the next and moves off to that.

Having worked on the fringe of the finance sector (the company I work for is mentioned in the book) I can find it fairly believable, and Preston writes the characters well, tracking the innate raw intelligence of most of the characters, which is then undermined by their pathological flaws for either wealth or status or sheer indulgence.

Preston inserts some great characters into the plot -  the tragic teeth stained Madison, who completely sees the insanity of her life, but who is unable to pull out of her job, so wed to it is she, and so determined to prove herself with her insight that the markets will soon fail. She is one of the the most fascinating people in the book, and perhaps represents rationality in that those around her aren’t at all interested in reality. She in turn links to the mentored Ray, who is completely outside the financial world as a low income adolescent, and sees Madison’s and Charlie’s choice of job and life often to be somewhat deranged.

Henry and Vero both weave in and out of the world of greed which is constantly associated with the markets, and seemingly are always better off when they’re away from it, though not directly, but mainly via Charlie, they all become entwined in the downward spiral and at the end I only really had sympathy for Henry, but it’s a sort of flawed sympathy somehow.

Charlie himself is carefully portrayed to try to let you maintain some sympathy for him throughout most of the novel, and only really towards the end (not wanting to put in any spoilers here) do we really see how he truly is – or at least what he has become – and eventually, I would argue, he gets what he deserves in many ways. Even then, even through the ups in his social status he maintains a small flat in Lodnon with poor heating, no television and an old car, as he reads compulsively and trawls real-estate website looking at possible future homes.

Overall I’d say this is a book well worth reading, even if you have no interest in the market – and no knowledge of them is needed to follow the story – just to see how someone with a bit of a chip on their shoulder and a fair amount of intelligence can not only wreak havoc in their own life and that of their family, but to almost everyone else they have a relationship with. The writing style is also very smooth, and very fluid given the topic of the storyline which makes some of the more unexpected and shocking events seem a bit removed or glossy which is perhaps the intent as the characters are often on drugs or just have a certain detachment from people and events, which is sometimes the crux of Charlie’s life.

Bookshelf: Daemon

Posted on by
1

It’s been a while since I read a tech thriller, set just a little in the future. This one is the first published novel by Daniel Suarez, an actual IT and Security consultant who went into writing. In fact, Daemon was at first a self-published effort, but was then picked up by a ‘real’ publishing house for release in 2009; I actually read this on my Kindle.

Written across three parts separated by several months, it starts with the death of a genius MMORPG and AI designer – Matthew Sobol – which in turn provides the trigger for the eponymous Daemon he has designed which will re-shape the whole of global society, and not just on the internet, and the ‘darknet’, but in actual physical life, using recruits from the games, working in augmented reality rigs, and even controlled cars called AutoM8s. The book primarily follows some key law officers trying to unravel the mystery of the Daemon, and some of it’s key recruits from both the gaming world, but also from criminal ranks.

The book itself comes out quite strongly, though in the first section, primarily about Sobol’s death and the storming of his mansion and the ensuing carnage, is well written, but suffers a little from the sheer number of characters who are introduced, many of whom are never seen or referenced again in the book, which detracts a bit as you’re mentally trying to retain all these names before you realise it doesn’t matter. There are also two key action sequences at the beginning and end of the novel which seem wholly written for a film adaptation, which for me sort of spoiled them a bit, though they are well written and relevant to the overall plot for the most part.

It’s apparent from the opening that the author does have more than a passing knowledge of technology, and seems to be able to write comfortably on it – tech references don’t feel as forced as they do in some books, when the author is dropping in words he learned in the research phase. The only minor thought I had on the tech name dropping was the references to datacentres running Cat5 data cabling. Really? Not Cat5e or Cat6? That’s a fairly nerdy piece of nit-picking though.

The whole world works well though when successive characters sense the futility of what they’re doing, and more importantly, who they’re doing it for. As the book progresses, and the scale and severity of the Daemon becomes apparent, it seems less and less that U.S. Federal forces, in the shape of the initial police, FBI, NSA and CIA members are really running the show, and more and more people and functions are shown to be merely outsourced to private security contractors, who as corporate entities like the Daemon, can be infiltrated.

Overall it was a real page turner, so to speak, and as soon as the sequel’s price drops for the Kindle version, I’ll definitely be snapping it up. The story is a very refreshing read, and makes a more convincing scenario not only for a virus to go global, but also how it could social engineer itself into the real world via operatives recruited online. I must admit that at times some parts did feel like a geek version of ‘Fight Club’ as people on the fringes of society are recruited for fun, then turned to an anti-establishment goal, but not to the detriment of the storyline, where for once, some police officers are portrayed as the heroes, themselves let down by their system, which cannot decide how do deal with the Daemon, and again, how many of them are actually working for the system anyway and are not merely out-sourced.

I always try to read a new author as often as I can, and Daniel Suarez, even though this book has been out some time, deserves a selection, especially as the sequel to this book – Freedom (™) – was released earlier this year so you can read them closer together.

Bookshelf: Rework

Posted on by
1

This is, perhaps,  another unconventional business book, taking the passionate elements like ‘Crush it!’ but more tech business based, coming from the founders of 37signals.com. These chaps make web based project management tools, and have built a fairly decent business on it, as well as being we respected in the coding community.

I listened to the book unabridged via Audible and at 2hr 50mins., it’s almost a long podcast. You can also dowaload PDF samples from their website, but the book itself is only 288 pages – it’s a quick read. So how did I hear about it, and why did I read it. Well, I’ve followed their products for a few years, but never been able to use them, and have heard a few speeches of theirs, and seem interviews, so I thought it’d be an interesting book from people who have actually done it. I really don’t find Harvard Business Review type books very interesting at all, and a lot of guru books just seem to be angling for consultancy or speaking gig deals. So how was this raw book?

It comes out from chapter one aggressively, citing it’s from real business people, not from academics and that it flies against conventional wisdom – a point it returns to several times.

They rail against long term planning. ‘Planning is guessing’ so why not called it that – ‘financial guessing’?  They go on that planning is inflexible and does not allow for improvisation as you know most when you’re actually doing it.

‘Why do people assume a bigger company is better? If that was true,  why doesn’t Harvard and other business schools grow like that? Maybe a company does have a right size.’ It’s a fair point, and it does make you wonder; of course, 37Signals is a private company – they can chose their growth, whereas traded companies can’t. So, following their points – isn’t that their fault for going public?

‘Workaholism is bad…it’s stupid. They [workaholics] make more problems, they miss opportunities and create poor solutions. It also creates the ‘ass in seat’ mentality.’ This is something I see more and more tech startups and such coming back to – not that the goal doesn’t get hit, but the mentality behind it. Ironically, I’ve seen this in Japan for years – yet the ‘West’ lauded Japan for long work hours. But that was it, no awesome results, just attendee-ism, so yes, I think they nail this point in that section.

One section -a mini rant – I quite like is their discussion on support, and when you call a support line you are on hold whilst a pre-recorded voice tells you that you call is important to them – just not important enough to hire more support people right?

It’s an interesting read, and indeed it isn’t an academic approach and whilst it does come from a small company (16 people) and at first my reaction was along the lines of ,”Well, that works in a small web company, but in a big, real company, it would never work…” but actually that’s wrong – headed. The truth is many of the points are true anyway, and you can implement them in any business – perhaps the “we’re too big” is just a default excuse for the rest of us.

Case in point are meetings – they can be useful when focussed but think of them as man hours taken for everyone to see the real cost of a meeting – it’s not one hour, it’s a six man hour meeting. The section ‘meetings are toxic’ kind of sums it up. I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot when I schedule meetings, and think – how can I keep the man-hours for this meeting to a bare minimum.

There’s a good section on interruptions and that they destroy productivity and potentially having ‘alone zones’. Again, why wouldn’t it work? Why not even try it?

All in all then, it’s a quick, worthy read for anyone in any business. For the small business it might remind you a bit on really, what are the growth goals for your company? For those of us in larger companies, it’s really a challenge backed up by the benefits of results and the fact that deep down you get this feeling that quite a few of these points are simply right.

Bookshelf: Crush It!

Posted on by
1

“Crush It!” is a book by entrepreneur, wine evangelist and now social media consultant, Gary Vaynerchuck. I was trying to think of how I actually heard about him in the first place, and I remembered it was listening to him on “This Week In Startups”, hosted by Jason Calacanis. That podcast should be listened to to give you a flavour of the man, and in turn, give you an idea of what to expect in the book. On that podcast, he comes across as a passionate and driven man, and that comes across in the book. You can also see him live at the Rails 2010 Conference (if you don’t like swearing, give it a miss!).

The hardback is relatively short at 142 pages, but it’s a fast and flowing read. Let’s be honest though, this doesn’t have that much new in it, and given it talks about social media and came out in mid 2009, some bits appear dated already. However, that’s not what’s of interest in this book.

What Gary ‘Vee’ does in the book is put a lot of things into a framework, and unlike other dry, business oriented attempts to ‘get rich quick from the web’, this truly is written with passion and enthusiasm, indeed that’s the full title of the book: Why Now is the Time to Crush It! – Cash in on your Passion. On page two he lays it out:

“Love your family. Work superhard. Live your passion.”

If you’re used to Harvard Business Review style books which seem to make a few good points, but make you feel they’re just hiding the real meat of the subject so you’ll subscribe or attend a seminar, or just recite dry case studies to pad the book out, definitely read this book. This book is short, but self contained. It’s a basic manual to social networking.

So it is partly evangelizing how to work in a more social media affected, and effected era. He rails against CVs/Resumes, something I agree with, and points out how it’s more about your personal brand, whether or not you are looking for a job, and that since employers – or anyone – looks for your online presence, you need to own it and define it.  He also gives a lot of tips on how to do it, and gives real, recent examples, both good and bad about how other people and companies are doing it. It’s not just about “get a blog”, it’s a question of stitching together a blog, to Twitter to Facebook and so on, and driving traffic. He tends to focus on defining a niche and driving traffic at that, but even if you aren’t looking to build a business, that online branding is still very important, interesting – and useful.

Remember that this is exactly how Vaynerchuck himself broke out – as host of winelibrary.tv – which was an online extension to his family’s co-op beers/wines/spirits shop in New Jersey, massively increasing revenue and ultimately growing the business. He then grew beyond that to be a social media proponent, leading to the aforementioned speaking gigs, the book, and now a consultancy.

For the book though, is it worth it? Yes it is; business books tend to be boring, written by academics – this is a man who has done it and enjoyed doing it, so that’s what comes across. Again, this is more about how to mix the ingredients, and that’s what it brings to the table – as he says at one point – the only part of your product a competitor can’t replicate – is you.

Bookshelf: The Windup Girl

Posted on by
Reply

A Book Review: The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi

This was a book I saw recommended on the ‘Swords and Laser’ website and podcast, otherwise, I’d probably have never have heard about it. That said, I listened to the audiobook version – unabridged of course – from Audible.com.

The story is set in a Thailand of the future, amidst a dystopian world ravaged by the downside of genetically modified foods – blister rust and other diseases have left most crops unviable, meaning the world is scrambling to find enough food and electricity and easy international travel have disappeared with the last of the oil. Now people travel by dirigible airship and sail boats, and store energy in wound springs.

Thailand has somehow shut itself off from the failing outside world, despite mass atrocities across the border in Malaysia, and pressure from global food companies and their ‘calorie men’ to succumb to single grow crops, and keep their own food clean. This self sufficiency and wall against modified crops is ruthlessly enforced by the ‘white shirts’ of the environmental ministry who seek out and cleanse any sign of disease – a cleansing usually of fire and lime.

Into this world, a calorie man called Anderson Lake is sent undercover to a factory which makes springs, as he seeks out the elusive Thai seed bank.

By accident he meets Emiko – a windup – a genetically engineered servant named after their almost clockwork jerky movements – abandoned by her Japanese master to serve in a secret sex club. Plagued in the humid capital of Bangkok by her tiny skin pores her former master requested to give her smoother skin, but unable to break with her conditioning of subserviance, she looks for a way out of her life to live in a fabled village of windups in northern Thailand.

The setting is original – I haven’t seen too many sci-fi stories set in Thailand, and the overall feel, with the lack of electricity clashing with the high tech of the genetic rippers produces a world akin to a hot, sweaty steampunk novel, though I’ve seen it referred to as a ‘biopunk’ work, which does kind of fit.

The writing is solid, truly achieving the feel of a failed society, the heat and sweat of a summer in Thailand, and the desperation of almost all the characters. All sides are represented, and whilst much of the story follows Lake and Emiko, the texture of the world is shown through an incorruptible white shirt and former Muay Thai fighter Jaidee Rojjanasukchai, his assistant, and a yellow card, Hock Seng, a formerly wealthy trader from Malaysia who now runs the spring factory since his entire family were slaughtered in his homeland.

The whole storyline twists and turns, and overall, the plot has a satisfactory outcome, winding through politics, military intervention and indeed the indigenous beliefs of the Thai people themselves, and their pragmatic approach to this new world order. It isn’t a book which relies on its setting to prop up a weak story, it balances the two quite well, which makes it easy to get into and quite satisfying right to the end. Indeed, at the end you might realise that the Thais, as underdogs have held together far better as a society, than the west represented here by the huge seed companies, and other nations which have embraced them and fallen.

[Wikipedia Link]