"Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means." — Dr. Koichi Kawana
I absolutely love to read. Always have. Hopefully, you do too!
I will be posting thoughts on various books and articles that I have found interesting and provocative (even if I don't always agree with them), in the past, currently by my bedside, or in my backpack or pocket.
This college text by Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman is one of the best resources for learning programming principles ever. You can even download the entire set of video lectures, as taught by the authors, for free from MIT.
Don't be scared off by the fact that it uses scheme (a dialect of lisp) as its language of choice. Its one of the languages everyone (whose serious) should learn.
This book is really about encouraging the creative process. Both in yourself and in other people. As a home schooling parent, I find it a great resource.
This book introduces us to a new breed of world changers, the "social entrepreneur".
There was an excellent series about this on PBS, "The New Heroes" which was hosted by Robert Redford.
Ashoka and the Skoll Foundation are also great places to learn more about the people who are doing it.
While it seems that many folks are pessimistic about the world today, I think there is a lot more to be optimistic about that than they realize.
While originally copyrighted in 1966, I find this book still has much to offer.
I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination but I found this book truly enlightening and even more relevant today as it deals with the "cost of information" and how it influences our decisions.
Malcolm Gladwell is an excellent writer and educates us on those first critical seconds wherein we make those "snap decisions". Sometimes they good, sometimes they are bad.
His style is more "the telling of a story" than the reporting of research results. I think this often brings to point home more keenly.
The writer's journey, like that of the classic hero is a practical guide for the aspiring storyteller. It is an extremely well written text based on the works of Joseph Campbell.
Step-by-step guidelines are given for structuring plots and creating realistic characters to create powerful narratives of the "mythic hero".
Copyright 2006, Jason Jobe