Bankers: beatniks, pyromaniacs, and gangsters

The cover story of today's Wall Street Journal quotes a prominent German politician as saying, "most of the bankers are competent and responsible, but there are also some beatniks, pyromaniacs and gangsters".

xkcd

I just "discovered" xkcd.com. Best stick-figure online geek comic strip ever! I spent 45 minutes viewing random comic strips and saw several that I really liked.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Funny, sexy, sad. I never had so much as high school Spanish, so some of it went over my head.

Learned the term culocracy and a lot of recent Dominican history. This book worked for me on a lot of levels. I love that Diaz won the Pulitzer for it.

Highly recommended.

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

This is a very funny novel. The comparisons to A Confederacy of Dunces are inevitable because it shows us the world through the eyes of a fat, crazy, brilliant protagonist, but Absurdistan really stands on its own.

Go Snack Daddy!

Read this book. You'll like it.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers is another great Gladwell book. This one particularly spoke to me because it largely revolved around an idea I've been pushing for years: practice is where the learning happens. I think Gladwell has a gift for the art of the example. In Outliers, he gives us some wonderful examples of why the motivation and opportunity to practice are the biggest differentiators between the wildly successful and the rest of us. Not to ignore the graveyard (we still love you, Taleb!), we also see how the man with the highest IQ in America basically failed to make anything of himself. Ironically, Outliers could be his big break.

The psychology of plane crashes; why the Beatles made it big; why Asians are good at math; how to get really good at anything; it's all in here and it's all fascinating.

Gladwell is a meme machine. You're going to be hearing these ideas everywhere. I heard the term "outliers" on political talk TV today. Yesterday my Gmail window had the quote, "The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win." The book is #1 on the NY Times hardcover nonfiction list. People will be talking about it for a long time.

I listened to this as an audiobook. It's read by the author, and I highly recommend listening to it.

Stupid is among the least negative of their many character flaws...

This Daily Show segment on the Mumbai attacks hit just the right note with me.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mumbai Tragedy

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The End by Michael Lewis

This article by Michael Lewis is the best explanation I've read of how Wall Street created the current financial fiasco. It's really long, but worth the read.