The Singularity Trap by Dennis E. Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a really good book. Lots of good science mixed in with some not-so-far-fetched science fiction. I really like this about Dennis E. Taylor. He entertains the physicist side of me at the same time he tickles my fiction side. I was enamored by his ‘Bobiverse‘ series, as it dove deeply into the science of deep space exploration, virtual reality and contact with other life. This new book (I think it will expand into a series, too.) explores only as far as the asteroid belt. At first, I thought it would be able space mining, but it quickly takes a right turn and goes in a whole new direction. Soon, we are off to the races of trying to figure out the conflicts of science vs the military, nation vs nation and, eventually, can humankind pull itself out of the downward spiral we are on of war, famine, inhumanity to humanity and all those nasty little problems we keep tripping over.

Once again, Dennis E. Taylor has a home run. Not as ‘second deck’ as Bobiverse, but a very strong poke over the wall.



View all my reviews

The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family by Jeff Benedict

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Having a passion for reading business leadership books, I have had this one on my radar for many years, finally picking it up after years on my shelf. I expected it to be a gushing pontification of how being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes people better at doing business. I know too many members of my church with whom I wouldn’t do business to be ready to accept that line of thinking. While there is a little gushing, it was not what I expected. Instead, it was an analytical view of several successful CEO’s traits, work ethic and habits and a deep dive into how those align with the values espoused by the gospel.

Let’s face it. CEOs have a very large, difficult job. When Jeff Benedict mentioned to his publisher, who called him on a Sunday to discuss business once, that he tried to not do business on the Sabbath and that there were several CEOs who, as members, tried to do the same, the publisher was intrigued. That unleashed a research project for Benedict on the topic of how these CEOs can balance their extremely time-consuming business life, their families and church, which often asks them to give 20+ hours / week in volunteer work. Perhaps it was because Benedict happened to be in the same congregation with three of these men in New Canaan, CT, but he was able to get in with these and several other CEOs to tease out how they do it. Through interviews with the CEOs, their wives, and their admins, he developed a pretty good picture of how they do it.

Benedict then found common threads of what values were important to the men and their wives and cross linked them into the teachings of the Church. That was what I found interesting, but not surprising. Being a member, I have heard these teachings all my life. So have these men, all but one being life-long members themselves. The other joined later in life, but has the same convictions of the importance of family and service. The examples of how these men handle their business duties, family responsibilities and still find time to be leaders in the Church was fascinating.

What kept me up late finishing the book was the test of fire these men went through. The last three chapters highlight the impact of 9/11 on their businesses – quite literally for Gary Crittenden of American Express and Jim Quigley of Deloitte & Touche who where in their offices in the World Trade Center that day. Benedict detailed their struggles, along with David Neeleman of JetBlue, of trying to save their employees and companies that day. I cannot imagine how hard that was and I had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion as I read. The integrity and grit showed by these men in this refiner’s fire took a lifetime of experience to forge. They pulled their companies through and then turned to help others.

His final story highlighted how to walk away. Kim Clark was the Dean of the Harvard Business School when he was asked to walk away from the pinnacle of academia and become president of a tiny church school, BYU-Idaho in rural Idaho. His thought process and approach was well laid out by the author. It confused the media and much of Harvard, but to members of the Church, it all made sense. Priorities play in heavily into decisions and this book shows how and why these men place priorities on their families and their religion ahead of their careers. Those priorities govern how they make decisions.

The epilogue of the book was telling. Are these men infallible? No. They make mistakes. Their businesses don’t always succeed. Being a member of the Church does not guarantee success, and the author didn’t want that being thought. He related the story of how these men came together to do a panel discussion around the launch of the book. The final presentation happened on the exact day David Neeleman was ousted from his company, JetBlue. The ‘Mormon Way’ of doing business doesn’t guarantee success, not make a leader perfect. But it was interesting to see how having one’s priorities and values direct their response to adversity. That is what I enjoyed most out of this book.



View all my reviews

The Force: The Legendary Special Ops Unit and WWII’s Mission Impossible by Saul David

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Force, as they were known during World War II were the precursor to the Green Berets. They were highly trained in mountaineering and winter combat. Formed from an idea by a British strategist, sold to the U.S. Military by Churchill and Mountbatten, manned by Canadian and American volunteers, these brave men trained in the high altitudes of Montana for over a year before the wheels of bureaucracy finally deployed them… to Italian beaches instead of Norwegian mountains. Eventually, it all got sorted out and, for their first taste of battle, were sent straight up the side of a steep cliff to take a strategic mountain top from a direction the Nazis never expected. Of course, they still put up a stiff fight, but The Force won the day and the legend that follows.

The Force by Saul David follows these brave men through their training, deployment (first to the Aleutians where they ‘took’ an island from the Japanese who retreated the day before) to Africa, then Italy. The final few chapters chronicled their attack on Dilafensa masif. The concept of taking lumberjacks, mountain men, hunters and explorers, training them rigorously on every type of weapon they could get their hands on, throwing them out of an airplane on their first week and then loading them down double of normal soldiers and sending them on triple long hikes in the dead of winter was the brainchild of a British plan to retake Norway. Putting together a force made up of Americans and Canadians was something never attempted. It nearly failed from simple problems like differences in bonus pay from paratrooper training. On top of that, it took changing the law to provide commendations and medals to Canadians serving under American commanders. Even in war, bureaucracy can undermine the best plans.

This was a good book, sprinkled liberally with stories of the brave men (and the women who married them, much to the chagrin of the officers) during their training in Montana. The descriptions of their first battle straight up the cliff was well done. What disappointed me was the author’s decision to stop right there. The rest of their exploits in the war were just as legendary, to the point the Germans had a special nickname just for them and units would magically fall back a little every day away from them when all other points held the line. No one wanted to be put up against them. Yet these stories all were told in a single chapter added to the end. That didn’t make sense to me. The first battle was truly ‘Mission Impossible’, but the rest were just as fascinating to me. I wish he would have written more.



View all my reviews

Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life by Rob Paulsen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have been an Animaniacs fan for years and was thrilled to get reacquainted with it last year when my daughter met Rob Paulsen. He was so kind and, when she told him I was a fan, recorded a quick ‘Hi’ from Yakko. What a class guy.

Then I discovered his book, Voice Lessons. I have to say, this is one you should get on Audible, because Rob reads it and does all the voices. There is so much Pinky, Yakko and the rest, it just wouldn’t be the same without the guys involved.

I thought it was going to be a nice memoir of a Hollywood voice actor, but it was so much more. Rob wove the lessons he has learned over the years into the narrative and really made it so much more valuable. I appreciate his sharing of those lessons. I can adopt them too, even without being a Hollywood type. I can just take time to be nice to everyone, no matter what. It doesn’t take that much time but the dividends for others is wonderful.

I learned a lot from Rob’s bout with throat cancer as well. I have considered what my career would be like if I lost my eyesight or something critical to working on computers all day. The thought of being a voice actor and losing one’s voice is hard for me to comprehend. Thanks to Rob’s book, I have a little more appreciation for what it could be like and how to approach such a terrifying prospect. But what I learned is that I need to be more of a friend to my friends who have trials like this. I don’t reach out enough. I don’t sit in the hospital with them while they are getting their kemo, like Rob’s friend “The Brain” Mo. This is something I can learn. Thanks for the lessons, Rob, Pinky, Yakko.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama….”



View all my reviews

The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath by Joe Lieberman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I don’t recall where I heard about this book, but Denise bought it for me from my Christmas list. What a wonderful present. I learned so much about Sabbath observance of orthodox Jews. There is much I can incorporate into my own. I love the gentle way Joe Lieberman presents the Sabbath. It never descends into ‘preachiness’. It is a gentle, kind lifting of the curtain into his weekly observance of something he holds very sacred.

I appreciate the lengths he goes, as a public servant to serve God first, us second. Yet, when the situation arises, he explains the thought process behind his breaking of the Sabbath. I have much to learn from him.

I appreciate how he broke the book up into phases, so as to teach us hour by hour the observance of the Sabbath, what it means to Rest. At the end of each chapter, there are thoughtful, non-denominational ideas others can incorporate to have a day of rest themselves. I am going to borrow a few myself.

There are many stories demonstrating his modifications of senatorial life so he and his family can first and foremost be observant Jews. Being a Christian, I appreciate the lengths others go to accommodate him. I especially enjoyed the story of how his Secret Service detail assigned during his run with Al Gore for the presidency, ending their assignment coincidentally at the beginning of the Sabbath, asked to join his family for one more observance together. What a tender moment that must have been.

I love this book and will make it one of my ‘read regularly’ list. Thank you, Brother Lieberman, for teaching me more about the Sabbath.



View all my reviews

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I enjoy reading management style books. I especially like reading books about successful companies I like. I really love reading books that help me understand how to lead my team. This book hits on all points. Ed Catmull ones one of the driving forces behind Pixar. He decided he wanted to examine the management style that create and grew Pixar, and later Disney Animation, into powerhouses of creativity. He spent years delving into their practices, intentions and mistakes. Along the way, he delivers a delightful series of anecdotes behind the scenes of some of our favorite animates movies.

I especially enjoyed learning how they build a company that delivers creativity on a schedule. This is something software houses struggle to do. Yet there are fewer things more creative than an animation team, creating a movie on a budget and a schedule. I believe this book will help a lot in my work with IT teams. I want to reread this book with a highlighter and a notebooks. Much can be borrowed here.



View all my reviews

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I’ll admit, I feel a little betrayed. I grew up in awe of the stories of the CIA. Tom Clancy had a lot to do with that. Legacy of Ashes proves one should not form opinions from fictional sources. After reading “The Spy and the Traitor”, I wanted to learn more about my country’s intelligence agency, as they didn’t come out sounding very intelligent in this book about the highest level British spy in the Soviet politburo. I started listening to Legacy of Ashes soon after.

I put this book aside several times during the last six months. It was too discouraging. The author, a journalist who has been covering the CIA for over 15 years for the New York Times, dug through the declassified documents and pieced together the truth about so many things we were never told.

Formed by Truman after World War II, given the mission to gather information to make sure the U.S. never experienced another Pearl Harbor, it didn’t take long for the president to start using it as a clandestine organization to do the dirty work that couldn’t be done in the daylight. In fact, every president from Truman through George W. Bush pledged as a candidate to not abuse the CIA (the book was written before Obama was elected). It lasted until the day after Inauguration. Every one of them turned to the black ops department and asked them to do things outside the law. (Who ran the most ops / day in office? You would be surprised based on the public persona.)

In reading the book about the British intelligence agency (MI6), they described the Americans as the new kids on the block, attempting to buy their way into the espionage world where the main players had been playing the game for centuries. Clearly the U.S. were out of their depth and through their bumbling around, made a mess of things for those who ‘knew what they were doing’. I thought that description a little arrogant and continental, until I read Legacy of Ashes.

What is disturbing me the most is our current outrage at Russia’s tampering in the 2016 election in the light of the CIA’s history. It must appear puzzling to so many other countries in Central America, Africa, Southeast Asia and even Europe, because the United States actively tampered with their elections, dumping in millions of dollars in support of a candidate we thought would be more democratic than the other. We bombarded countries with leaflets, ran radio stations with endless propaganda, even hired assassins to attempt to knock off one candidate. In one country, after all our tempering didn’t work, the CIA then contacted their military leaders, trying to find one they could coerce into starting a military coup to overthrow the winner (who wasn’t all that bad of a guy after all). When that didn’t work, they went to a neighboring country’s military and bought of a general to go attack. All in the name of democracy over communism. We did this all through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, …. I am truly sorry for what was done to other countries’ in my name. What a mess.

This book really shifted my thinking of the CIA. I and quite disgusted with the leaders of the country and how duplicitous they were with this agency. They gave it an impossible task and then took them to task whenever it didn’t work out they way they wanted. They were so convinced they could (and worse, should) pull the strings of power around the world through illegal and immoral methods. It’s just not cool. They probably saved thousands of lives by keeping the Cold War cold and and not a shooting war. But the cost of our integrity is perhaps a little too high.



View all my reviews

The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats by Richard A. Clarke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Who needs Steven King? This book will keep you awake at night if you work in IT. And if you don’t work in IT, you should still read it, because like it or not, your home is filled most likely with IT.

Richard A. Clarke was the Internet Counter Terrorism guy for 3 presidents: Clinton, Bush and Obama. He has seen it all over the years. In this book, he tackles all aspects against the cyberwar we are fighting. Yes, we are fighting a cyberwar whether we like to admit it or not. We have been for decades, but no one is talking about it much. Some companies know it and are combatting cyber armies daily. Others have been in denial, assuming the government will fight that war for them, like they do on the other four domains (air, sea, land and space). This war is different, though. The government CAN’T and shouldn’t fight it for everyone else.

We love having an unregulated Internet. We value our freedoms to use the Internet for a multitude of things. We expect to be able to search for answers on ANY topic and get results, not empty pages. We believe what we do on the Internet will not result in jail time for ‘civil disobedience’. Yet, this is what the Internet is in other countries. These countries are also actively exploiting those freedoms to target our government, way of life and even our infrastructure. It sounds like a story right out of Tom Clancy. This is the fight we are slowly awakening to now.

Clarke demonstrates all these challenges in ways that everyone can understand. I am so impressed with his description of quantum computing, for example, I think it should be used broadly to help explain the coming revolution. I know I didn’t understand it until his examples, and I work in IT and am trained in physics. Now I get it. And I am concerned. Yes, the power will be wonderful! And in the wrong hands, terrifying.

Clarke breaks down all the different aspects of the cyber threats to our country and way of life. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect, explaining the problem and the possible solutions and changes to public policy he recommends. He doesn’t let himself off the hook either. He explains the mistakes he and his colleagues made along the way. He details how this can’t be a governmental problem only, too. It is going to take business to step up. We don’t want the government to have the level of control and reach required to halt attacks we are experiencing. He provides one of the most complete and wide-ranging descriptions of cyber security I have read.

And then, in the last chapter, he makes it personal. In that chapter, he brings it to you and me. What can we do to protect ourselves, our family and our homes against these attacks. Yes, these attacks are aimed directly at us, too. He details actions we can safely make to protect our computers and all the IoT (Internet of Things) devices like smart TVs, smartphones, ovens, light switches, etc., especially as we move into the world of 5G networks. Because technology is moving and changing so quickly, security is usually the last thing we think about when we consider the possibilities of self driving cars and controlling our house by talking to Google or Alexa. But we should. If we don’t, we will be come the pawns of the cyber terrorists and nations arrayed against us.

Did Russia tamper with our 2016 election? Absolutely. Regardless of whether your favorite candidate was the victim or the pawn is open to debate, but the reality is we were all impacted. And this is only the beginning because, like it or not, we have done little as a nation since to insure it won’t happen again.

The biggest comfort I took away from this book was Clarke’s assurance we CAN win this war by playing good defense. We don’t have to give up all our liberty to stymie the opposition. There are some things we can do to make it so expensive and ineffective so as to deter all but the most determined nation-states. Once we eliminate the majority of the easy and medium threats, we can focus on the harder ones.

I highly recommend this book to everyone who has a computer on their desk, in their pocket, on their wrist or embedded in their house or car – which is pretty much everyone. Learn a little about the world we live in and find out what you need to do to protect yourself.



View all my reviews

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am slowly working through biographies of the Founding Fathers. I quite enjoyed this installment, learning about our most senior statesman of the time. For all the stories that have survived of Benjamin Franklin, kits and electricity, lightning rods, stoves, bifocals, almanacs and his many, many bits of wisdom passed along as Poor Richard, I don’t think many know the real Franklin. Walter Isaacson digs deep to present us with as accurate a portrayal as possible, perhaps even more accurate than those of the time knew.

Franklin certainly had his flaws as well as his exemplary traits. He was not much of a family man or husband, but was magnanimous to adopted families (he ‘acquired’ one where ever he traveled) or the many women he pursued (and never quite ‘caught’). There is much to be emulated and just as much to be avoided. One thing for sure, he was an interesting man, more prolific of his time.

What I enjoyed most of this book is Isaacson’s relentless portrayal of Franklin as perhaps Franklin was, not as what he would have the world believe. Franklin has his autobiography for that. Isaacson pieces together what could be found and then makes his own educated guesses, being sure to let us know the difference. He then offers some explanation, based on his suspicions, to help us go beyond history’s portrayal to what just might have been the real Benjamin Franklin.

However, like him or not, one must understand just how much he contributed to the culture, identity and future of the new, upstart country known as the United States of America. Without Benjamin Franklin, the loose confederation of states probably would have foundered and expired into who knows what quite rapidly. We probably wouldn’t have developed our feisty entrepreneurial spirit, our optimism and our tolerance for others. He was a remarkable man and is worthy of study. Highly recommended.



View all my reviews