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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is one of the most inspirational stories I have ever read.  It tells the story of William Kamkwamba who lived in Malawi, Africa.  A famine forced his family into starvation and his parents could no longer afford to send the fourteen year old  to  school.  He spent a lot of his time at the Library where he saw a picture of a wind mill.  In three months time he created one.

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Pirate Latitudes

This book was published after Crichton’s death and is about Pirates,  arrrrhhh!

It was okay,  but not that great.  Besides the technical aspects of Crichton’s work,  he is great at creating relatable characters'.  I didn’t relate.  Now reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,  and next will be The Checklist Manifesto. 

 

Loving the nook, but it does not sync with my place in books with the iphone like the Kindle and their app does. 

Super Freakonomics

The book does a great job taking on Global Warming,  geo-engineering, and religion.  In 1991 Mt. Pinatubo erupted spewing tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere.  The end result was a partial cooling of the earth.  If the earth can cool itself down,  why can’t man recreate this effect and solve the “issue” of global warming?

Dump chemicals in the atmosphere?  It was a crazy hair-of-the-dog scheme that seemed to violate every tenet of environmentalism.  Those who saw global warming as a religious issue could hardly imagine a more grievous sacrilege.  P.216

 Budyko’s Blanket is a plan to do this.  Pump sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere at the poles to cool the earth down. 

So Budyko’s Blanket could effectively reverse global warming at a total cost of $250 million.  Compared with the 1.2 trillion that Nicholas Stern proposes spending each year to attack the problem, IV’s ideal is practically free.  It would cost $50 million less to stop global warming than what Al Gore’s foundation is paying to just increase the public awareness of global warming. 

P.216

Besides Global Warming the book takes on Prostitution,  (Casual Sex has killed the prostitutes wages.)  Suicide Bombing, Child Birth, and a lot of other topics.  A great read. 

Juliet, Naked

Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, has written a new book about Tucker Crowe, a washed up musician who has fled into obscurity.  A group of “Crowologist” have dedicated their lives to analyzing every insignificant detail of Crowe’s Music and what caused him to disappear.  Chief Crowologist Duncan has finally annoyed his 15 year old girl friend enough that she writes a scathing review of a unplugged version of Crowe’s most famous album.  It turns out that Crowe loves the review and starts up a relationship Duncan’s now ex girlfriend, Annie.

Horny at his best.  As funny as About A Boy.

The Predictioneer’s Game

First book in Game Theory I have read in a while.  Reminds me of my political science days.  Starts with the premise that people will do what is in their best interest.  Using that theory, Bruce goes on to use game theory to predict certain political outcomes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of his predictions:

• If the US guarantees not to attack North Korea and China guarantees to defend North Korea and if North Korea is given 1billion a year in assistance, they will give up their Nuclear Weapons Program.
  
• If the US removes troops from Iraq, it will strengthen the conservatives in Iran.  However if the US leave a force of troops in Iraq, the conservatives in Iran will lose power.
   
• If the Israel's shared their tourist tax revenue with the Palestinians, it would reduce terrorism in the Middle East.

I really liked the part of the book where he went back and saw what would have needed to be done to stop World War I.

Started reading The Day of Battle, By Rick Atkinson, the second part of this trilogy on World War II.

Where Men Win Glory

Just finished author Jon Krakauer’s (Into Thin Air)  book Where Men Win Glory which is a biography on Pat Tillman, an extraordinary American whose life was cut tragically short by a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan.  Tillman was a unique person who once told his agent to reject a 9 million dollar contract from another NFL Team  out of loyalty to the Arizona Cardinal’s who were only paying him $500,000 a year.   

The precincts of professional football are not where one expects to find manifestations of a searching intellect or a sensitive heart, but in Pat Tillman there was much evidence of both.  He favored Ralph Waldo Emerson, was fascinated by Noam Chomsky, and read the Homer that gives this book-length eulogy its sad title (“Since never before have I seen you in the fighting where men win glory, yet now you have come striding far out in front of all others in your great heart . . . ”).  The enormous love he felt for Marie is the stuff of fiction -- and of pain when we later read of it: at the start of a brief pass upon completing basic training, they flew to each other’s arms with such force it knocked them to the ground, where they continued their passionate greeting.  Over all, he lived to challenge himself both physically and mentally, playing a brand of football one coach called “so smart and so aggressive,” then turning to the study of history in the off-season from the Arizona Cardinals.  Only someone as uncommon as this would have “traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a bad haircut.”

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/Where-Men-Win-Glory/ba-p/1411

Besides going describing Tillman’s life, it goes into great detail on how political propaganda machine’s distorted events like the rescue of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman’s death for gain and asks the question that if a man like Pat Tillman walked away from a multi million dollar contract and was willing to give three years of his life for his country,  shouldn’t that country be honest and forth right about his death?

 

Starting on Predictioneer’s Game by Bruce Bueno Do Mesquita

The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

Finished this book two weeks ago.  It is about how Facebook was started at Harvard.  I think the author is a little to obsessed with sex, which he credits the whole reason Facebook being started.  It hard to tell if Mark Zuckerburg, the primary founder of Facebook was a complete jerk, or just aloof.   Mark was originally hired by some Harvard students to create a social networking site.  He pushed them off for a couple of months, and then started facebook.  He then moved to California and used a team of lawyers to strong-arm is friend and chief investor of Facebook out of the company.  Years later both of these parties sued Facebook and they both received out of court settlements in the millions. 

I have just started reading Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, which is about Pat Tillman. 

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

When I was in college I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  I really enjoyed that book at the time, but I found that other Kiyosaki books seem to regurgitate the exact same information.  I read in this article that the "Rich Dad" might have been completely made up.  The real thing that bothers me about Rich Dad, Poor Dad is Robert's "rant" against higher education.  Graduate school does not teach you everything you need to know about money management, but it is still a wise decision for many people.

Dark Tower

I have just finished book five of the Dark Tower, The Wolves of the Calla.  It is really good.   I started about two  months ago with the Gunslinger which I read in two hours.  I should finish it soon.  I am also reading a book on the Spanish Flu outbreak in the early part of last century which is turning out to be pretty good.