david.doolin

Good chronology and OOB

I found this a fantastic account of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge, and really appreciated the author's work placing the narrative into global context. I learned a lot about the roles of Vietnam, China, and the USSR as well as the USA.

I started and read half through The Fieldstone Method a number of years ago. Succinctly:

1. This is how I've always written, did not know there was a name for it.
2. This is not a good method, for me, for intermittently delivering business or technical writing on demand. There are other books for that skill.

Rating 3 stars to balance the 1 star and 5 star aspects.

Many people will find this monograph hideous with no redeeming value whatsoever, as can be seen by the numerous 1 star reviews it has garnered.

On the other hand, it's regarded as the most influential book on management of the 20th century. For this reason I find it worthwhile to ready it for myself to understand why that might be so.

Having spent years working as a carpenter in residential construction, I do respect that the author started his career as a laborer and worked his way up through the ranks. That was not common then, and not common now.

Take homes:

- Constrained input metrics
- PR/FAQ, start from the end
- Tenets to help guide decision making

I'm using these concepts in production right now.

Very nice summary of the mindset and philosophy of the zettelkasten system. The target audience appears to be someone who is early in their note taking, has heard of zettelkasten, and wants more inspiration.

Pretty good account especially as the author was boots on the ground less than 24 hours before it went pear shaped.

Good playbook for scaling, particularly hypergrowth scaling. I pretty much lived this book for 4 years at a previous employment.

Stories from an era where manners fit between the poles of coarseness and primness found in contemporary discourse. Many of the references and allusions may be lost to current readers. However, I found the book really informative and entertaining, and surprisingly accessible with a year of college chemistry.

Just finished a first read, need to reread.

Didn't finish. Along with the known problem in one of the chapters (2?), the treatment is too academic for my needs at the moment. I can see myself revisiting in the future.

Atomic Habits is the yang to Tiny Habits yin. They complement each other. Tiny Habits to get started, Atomic Habits to develop mastery.

From personal experience, the material on ensuring habits aren't stale and aren't producing outcomes is the most important part of the book. Building habits isn't difficult. Building the right habits requires considerably more effort. Habits which aren't ultimately producing desired outcomes are indistinguishable from “bad” habits, regardless of the moral content of the habit.

Good reference material, especially around feedback, even for “process and control” environments.

Good business principles with a dose of feel good, and a bit of “last word” justification here and there. On my reread list.

I've been using parts of the Tiny Habits system since long before the book came out. The book has shown me at least one way to extend my personal habit building system with no effort at all. I can see the potential for deeper results after implementing more of the Tiny Habits system.

Understanding the how the USA militarily came to be involved in Vietnam almost requires understanding the strategic importance of Laos. Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations believed that losing Laos would result in losing Vietnam as well, and they were correct. “Before The Quagmire” describes in detail how Laos was lost to Western influence. Readers familiar with the dawn and prosecution of The Cold War may sympathize with the diplomats involved, particularly J. Graham Parsons whose career was tarnished by his service in Laos. There were no good choices, only bad choices and worse choices, and every choice leavened with the potential of hot war erupting with either China, or Russia, or both, and the potential nuclear consequences.

Readers familiar with characters involved in The Secret War will be delighted with the short but highly complimentary reference to Bill Lair.

I found the examples dated. The world of the early 2000s seems very strange now.

Easier said than done, but consistently applied over years as an organization grows, psychological safety should grow with it. My impression is that the tech industry is making decent progress overall in this area.

Mandatory reading if you work in distributed systems.

Implemented most of the code in the book, wrapping a fair bit of with tests.

I really like the Decorator pattern in Ruby, and believe it's sadly underutilized.

This is one of those books where if you “get it” it's real. And if you don't, it's total BS.

Personally, I get it.

For example, I actually know someone that really does have PTSD. Goleman explains a plausible mechanism.

If you're a skeptic, you won't find anything useful in this book, so don't waste your time. If you're willing to consider personal experience as validation for his claims, read it and observe the world around you from a more emotionally significant perspective.


My personal experience? Predictability doesn't imply measureability. This makes the subject an art rather than a science. I'm just fine with that.

I really like the exposition in this book.

One of the handiest computer science books I own! Very well written and accessible for what could be exceedingly dry material.

First read 12+ years ago, just finished 2d read. The general principles of selling haven't changed very much and the book is very convenient for me.

However, I do not recommend this to general readers.

I do not understand why Higgins' reporting on Vietnam has been completely bypassed. None of her observations or perspectives are reflected in the current narrative of that war. Perhaps had she not tragically passed away in early 1966, she might have had an influence on the conduct and direction of the proceeding years.