I love reference books

I am a nerd by nature, and always have been. When other boys were playing football outside, I was usually squirreled away somewhere with a book. Growing up an only child, and in a trailer court with few others my age, there were few chances for getting together a neighborhood game of baseball (although I did build a cool dugout fort with the Vaughn brothers one summer - it is now buried under the basement of a condo).

From a fairly young age I gravitated to the 000s section of the library. What was then called "Reference." I was somewhat of a library rat through my elementary and junior high years, and checked out lots of books from most of the major Dewey decimal system sections. But there were just some reference books I loved, and still love. Further, I'd say they actually changed who I am, what I became, and help explain a part of why I am the way I am, and why I approach learning so differently than most.

I distinctly remember an atlas I had as a kid. My folks had given it to me because it was "obsolete." It was an old railroad atlas of the United States. I loved that book, I wish I still had it now. It's covers ended up gone, the pages tattered, but I would still flip through it from time to time, looking at the web of railroad lines, the small towns (many even then gone), learning the rivers, the patterns, the feel of our country. Coupled with long car drives for vacations (no one who wasn't rich flew in those days) it helped me set much of this country into a mental representation in my head. I admit it - I am a map geek. Don't ask how many atlases and topos there are floating around my house. For at least the last dozen years Les has put up with maps on the walls of our office, our hallways, even our bedroom (geologic map of Colorado and a landforms map of Missouri)! See how she loves me?

So, I decided to sit down and list a few reference books (or sets of books) that changed me, how I think, how I look at the world, how I process information. This certainly isn't all of them, but it's a start. And since it's been languishing half-written for three and a half years now, it's time to finish the damned post and get it out, don't you think?

• World Book Encyclopedia - every single programmer of my generation that I know, at least the good ones, all have a variant of the same experience growing up. Some time around their entry into adolescence someone gave them a set of used "World Books" and over the next few years they then proceeded to read them cover to cover. When I got mine in the early 1970s, I think the set was from the late 1950s. I can still remember some of the articles, charts and diagrams. Even now I love to spend hours "Wiki spelunking," just hopping from article to article, opening tabs with interesting links while I read one article until I have ten or twenty open to go through. I just recently moved a set of Britannicas out of our bookshelves and I just can't bring myself to throw them out, even though no one will take them - you literally can't give them away any more!
• The Whole Earth Catalog - I don't know which was better. The ethos of self-determination, independence and community, or the writing. Stewart Brand and company could wield words, that is for sure. The content and focus changed over two decades, but the goals of making us all true autonomous citizens never did. I miss it.
• Times Atlas of World History - combining two of my loves, history and maps, this beautiful (beautiful) book is full of fascinating details and yet presented in such a wonderful format. It was recommended by the Whole Earth Catalog in their "Best -of-the-Best" book list and it took no more recommendation than that. I bought my first copy and fell in love. I later gave that copy away to a neighbor (Vaun Minden, if you ever google your name and stumble across this, get in touch!) because I had bought an updated version. Wonderful book. Check out the "upside down" map of agriculture spreading from the Turkish/Syrian highlands. Or the kaleidoscopic map of the hundreds of duchies, bishoprics, free towns and other "powers and principalities" that was Germany in the 17th century. Wonderful.
• System/370 Principles of Operations - I read this over a period of six months while at my first "programming" job. It is hard to explain to a non-techie, but basically it is a manual covering the "machine language" of a certain type of computer. You can imagine reading a dictionary, then imagine it being a dictionary describing a language that is quite foreign, artificial and precise, and you can get a hint of what it is like. It was quite a feat and truly helped change the course of my career.

What about you? Are you a reference geek ready to come out of the musty closet? Do you like reading about things in order from A to Z? 

You already knew that

Best Buy admits what you already knew:


"We're no longer the authority in electronics."

"Not that long ago, Best Buy was the authority in this market; our stores wow-ed consumers," said interim Chief Executive Mike Mikan during a conference call with analysts. "Not anymore. Today’s marketplace is different. From my perspective, it’s a marketplace we weren’t prepared for."

Duh.

The article mentions Apple (iPads, app store) and Amazon (infinite inventory, free/discounted shipping) as the prime suspects in the murder. I would say that's part of it. But there's another part that the CEO doesn't mention - pure greed backfiring. I don't go in the Best Buy here very often (and in the middle of nowhere there are limited shopping options, so that's saying a lot), and almost every time I do I walk out empty-handed. Why? Because they're high - pure and simple. They want a price premium on EVERYTHING - DVDs, CDs, computers, TVs. I look at what they stock and immediately think "I bet that's cheaper on Amazon" (and can prove it by a quick look-up on my phone) or worse for them, if I'm in a "gotta have it today" mood, "I bet that's cheaper at Wal-Mart one mile away."

Let's review:

• 10-50% price premiums - when compared with Amazon or Wally World. That's the main killer, right there. There's a recession going on, folks.
• Limited stock - compared with Amazon.
• Sales tax - again, compared with Amazon. There's not a heck of a lot I could buy from Best Buy that I can't wait two days on for my Amazon Prime free shipping to get it here. Even if I have to pay for shipping, that's generally a low, flat rate compared to sales tax, which just keeps going up based solely on price.
• Obnoxious sales staff - I've heard salesteens there tell people "We don't work on commission," which then makes me want to ask them, "Then why do you act like you do?"
• General ass-hattery around price matching - e.g. special SKUs from manufacturers so they can always claim "That's not the same computer" when shown a competitor's ad or web site.

So they're doing poorly. This is a surprise to anyone?

My esteemed colleagues

Years ago I ran a distributed "advanced technology" team for a software vendor who shall remain nameless (if not blameless). At its height there were five of us spread across three time zones, with me reporting to a CTO who lived in yet a fourth time zone. The remainder of the company's developers were all in a single location. If I knew then what I know now (thanks, in part, to that job), I would never have taken the gig in the first place. But it had its perqs and one of the people who worked for me has remained a good friend since.

Anyway, email was a major communication mechanism, with all the problems that implies - asynchronicity, different levels of writing skills (and different levels of reading skills, given it was an international company), and the lack of inflection. Our team was often tasked with explaining, again, why certain ideas and approaches were "non-optimal," yet because of politics and standard business practice we couldn't just come out and call someone an idiot, at least not to their face. Needless to say this got tiresome.

Over time we developed a way to direct a message to someone in the mothership and let other team members have a laugh while not triggering a warning from manglement about "unprofessional communications." The sarcasm protocol was established as follows:

1. The email message had to start with "My esteemed colleague(s)."
2. It had to end with "Have a nice day!"

The whole point was to generate a message in between those two "snark marks" that got the point across without raising hackles and yet would be side-splittingly funny to those "in the know." For example:

My esteemed colleague, 

Upon deep study of your recommendation of Tuesday last, I must say I was taken by its originality in approach and enthusiasm of presentation. I certainly had never thought of such a solution, and it has occupied much of my thoughts over the past few days, causing me to return to it again and again for further contemplation. Needless to say, it will require much investigation and our team has already had many good discussions about it and what we should do with it, and have raised our appreciation of your ideas to upper management. We will certainly let you know if we have any follow-up questions concerning their feasibility. 

Have a nice day!

So, the next time you're ready to rip off that flame email, take a deep breath, step back, and then start again, beginning it with "My esteemed colleague" and ending it with "Have a nice day!" I think you'll find two benefits. First, you won't send out something you may later regret. And second, you can have a lot of fun doing it and maybe get rid of a bit of tension. Go ahead, give it a try!

Have a nice day!

The human condition

I have come to the sad conclusion that the defining human trait isn't intelligence but one of intelligence's side effects - prejudice. I have them and hate them in myself. Most people don't seem bothered by theirs, but instead wave them proudly like flags. It's as if they're more proud of the tribe(s) they are against than the one(s) they are a part of.

I am even more amazed when slurs toward another group come spewing from the lips of people who are themselves part of a group toward whom many express prejudice. The mental image that always calls to my mind is one drowning person standing on the shoulders of another. "I may be x, but at least I'm not y!" It would be ironic, if it weren't so fucking ugly.

I have been observing a lot in myself, my family, friends, work, our nation and our world lately that make me sad, and most of it is around our unrelenting inability to forgive others for being imperfect, not like us, human. Even in gatherings where the whole point is to be inclusive it shows up. There always has to be an "other." Always. I guess it is just a side-effect of Dunbar's number (aka "the monkeysphere"). But it is still the ugly side of our species. If I had to label anything "original sin," it would be that - hatred, tribalism, racism, prejudice.

Ugh.

A sequel about avoiding sequels

I don't do sequels.

I should clarify that.

When it comes to movies I don't (willingly) watch sequels. When I do, almost invariably it ends up proving my rule. So, for example, I've never seen a Star Wars movie after the first one (or would that be the fourth one?) Where I have seen a sequel, it is usually at the insistence of a friend or family member, and I always regret it. Especially because it takes what may have been a good movie in my head and weighs it down with a lesser one and then the average rating for both drops, so when I think of them I remember the overall "Meh," not the original "Wow!"

I don't watch remakes, either. If the original movie was worth watching, then that is good enough for me. If it wasn't, why remake it? (koff Red Dawn koff) I can think of few remakes that were worth the effort and expenditure, let alone came close to surpassing the original. Which is yet another reason why I watch few new(er) movies now.

Yet sequels and remakes seem to be all Hollywood can hash out any more. It is better to strip mine the past, finding those creative nuggets of high-grade ore to recycle rather than to prospect in new, uncharted territory (hmmm - "recycling ore?" mixed metaphor, that). Our only hope is from technology. New music, books and even movies are easier and cheaper than ever to make and distribute, and lots of people are doing it (in less than five years the number of published book titles has exploded from 250,000 to something like three million). There might be a lot of junk created, but I think through sheer numbers a lot of creativity will be unleashed. There is certainly a renaissance going on in independent music right now. Let's hope we see more of that in movies as well.

Meanwhile, just say no to sequels and remakes. They got your money once. Make 'em work for any more of it.

I always did like that game

The other day I took yet another one of those tests that tell you what type of personality you are. You know the ones - that divide everyone up into four categories, and then under that are four sub-categories, thereby making 16 total sub-types (are there any personality tests used by corporations that don't end up categorizing people this way?) In this test, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, I came out as a mastermind (their term, not mine!) This maps to the Myers-Briggs INTJ (introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment). According to Wiki::

Masterminds are introspective, pragmatic, directive, and attentive. As strategists, they are better than any other type at brainstorming approaches to situations. Masterminds are capable but not eager leaders, stepping forward only when it becomes obvious to them that they are the best for the job. Strong-willed and very self-assured, they may make this decision quickly, as they tend to make all decisions. But though they are decisive, they are open to new evidence and new ideas, flexible in their planning to accommodate changing situations. They tend to excel at judging the usefulness of ideas and will apply whatever seems most efficient to them in accomplishing their clearly envisioned goals. To Masterminds, what matters is getting it done—but also learning the principles of how to get it done efficiently and well, that is, at a professional level of quality.
...
Masterminds are also highly theoretical, and the most open-minded of the 16 role variants. Before Masterminds adopt a theoretical notion, they insist on researching all the available data and checking the idea against reality. Masterminds are suspicious of theories based on poor research and will discard ideas that cannot be effectively implemented.

Also from Wiki, re. INTJ:

INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake ... INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play ... Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel ... This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals ... Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense.—Marina Margaret Heiss 

INTJs are analytical. Like INTPs, they are most comfortable working alone and tend to be less sociable than other types. Nevertheless, INTJs are prepared to lead if no one else seems up to the task, or if they see a major weakness in the current leadership. They tend to be pragmatic, logical, and creative. They have a low tolerance for spin or rampant emotionalism. They are not generally susceptible to catchphrases and do not readily accept authority based on tradition, rank, or title. 

INTJs are strong individualists who seek new angles or novel ways of looking at things. They enjoy coming to new understandings. They tend to be insightful and mentally quick; however, this mental quickness may not always be outwardly apparent to others since they keep a great deal to themselves. They are very determined people who trust their vision of the possibilities, regardless of what others think. They may even be considered the most independent of all of the sixteen personality types. INTJs are at their best in quietly and firmly developing their ideas, theories, and principles.—Sandra Krebs Hirsch

I am suspicious of all of these sorts of testing "instruments," but I also think that when taken as a pointer toward things to consider about ourselves, especially when we interact with others, they can be instructive. I certainly do feel there is a lot in the above (and in the rest of both articles) that applies to me. I was told by a fellow programmer that most software developers are INTJs.

So, for those who know me, what do you think? Does the above fit?

[And per the title, when I think of "mastermind," I always think of the game.]

Loving is not very efficient

I have been thinking a lot lately about two concepts that I've decided are opposites - "relationship" (as in, being in relationship with others) and "efficiency." Those would seem to be unrelated, but they're not.

What started me down this road was my own hypocrisy. For example, I like that fact the we belong to a small church. A bigger church could perhaps "do more" in terms of outreach and "mission," but a small church is all about relationships, not big actions. People, not programs. And I love that the charities we support are all "inefficient" in that they are about relationships with others, and that we can name people directly affected by our giving.

But then in other arenas in my life I demand efficiency. I rail about those who will do scumbag things at their job and hide behind it being "just business." I don't think you can or should check your morals at the door when you clock in. Yet I too act differently there. Not in a "Let me rip you off in the name of capitalism" way, but more with impatience with others, especially those who I think aren't being very efficient.

We Americans are raised to believe in efficiency, that it serves the greater good. It is the ultimate offering to the god of utilitarianism. But life isn't about efficiency. It's about relationships. I need to keep that in mind every day, looking past "There's a better way to do that, why can't they see that?" and instead thinking, "There's a human being working the best they can, why can't I see that?"

Current reading

Recently finished:

• Preaching Without Notes, Joseph M. Webb - read this for the preaching class I just completed. Pretty lightweight stuff. A small book that could've been smaller, if you get my drift.
• The Witness of Preaching (2nd ed), Thomas G. Long - ditto (although I thought it better than Preaching Without Notes). The best part was the model of a preacher being someone who is sent by the congregation into Scripture to bring back "a word." Worth reading just for that part, although the sections in the second half on the mechanics of sermon prep and structure were desert-dry.
• Mission: The Small Church Reaches Out, Anthony Pappas, Scott Planting - finished for upcoming "social mission" class. I liked it because it pointed out that a small church's main weakness (it's, ahem, small) is also its main strength. There is no need to form committees and have endless meetings to help others. If something needs doing, a few motivated people in a small church can "just do it." Good stuff.

In process:

• Sabbath and Jubilee, Richard H. Lowery - almost finished, for the "mission" class. Very interesting so far. Will be curious to see where the book goes with the theme (it is no small recommendation that this is also one of our pastor Michelle's favorite books).
• A People's History of Christianity, The Other Side of the Story, Diana Butler Bass - for the upcoming history of Christianity class. I can already tell this is going to be a good book and a good class (I've had the teacher before).
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie - my "fun" book right now. Those who know me know I don't read much fiction any more, so the fact I am reading this and truly enjoying it is doubly surprising. I bought it after watching the movie Smoke Signals last Friday with Les, which was based on some of the characters from this book of short stories about life on an Indian reservation. The writing is...amazing. I am reading one short story a night and just letting it absorb. Recommended.