Accidentally in Code

Tag: books

  • Book: Hidden Figures

    Book: Hidden Figures

    hidden_figuresEveryone was talking about Hidden Figures the movie, so I figured I should at least read Hidden Figures the book (Amazon). It was amazing.

    First, the stories of these women go way beyond the snippets I’d heard about them. Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectories, but also graduated from high school at 14, spoke fluent French, and was the first African-American woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. She also had three kids and two husbands. Dorothy Vaughan‘s story was amazing – a teacher looking for an extra summer job, she applied for the job as a computer and in the laundry. She got the job as a computer, and left everything she knew behind – gradually moving her children to be with her. She was the first African-American woman to supervise a group of staff at Langley. Mary Jackson was Langley’s first black woman engineer – and she had to petition the all white high school to be allowed to take the requisite classes to hold the “engineer” title.

    These women were all impressive in their own right, and it was so wonderful to read their stories. The book entwines their stories with the broader state of civil rights in the US at that time. For instance, Prince Edward County (also in Virginia, not far from Langley) when ordered to integrate the public school system, instead shut down the entire public school system (of course, they made a provision for white children – finally ruled illegal in 1964). I learned things about the civil rights movements, but the contrast highlighted how much these women overcame to achieve what they did.

    As I finished the book, the main thing that struck me is not how much has changed, but how much hasn’t. Black women (and men) still make up a vanishingly small percentage of tech roles, schools might be legally integrated but social segregation – and the opportunity gap – remains. The police continue to murder black people with impunity. To take this book (or movie) as a sign that black women can be successful in this field misses the point – because how many more have never been granted the opportunity?

    This is a great and illuminating book. You should read it.

  • Book: Sex Object

    Book: Sex Object

    41pcHII6TqL._SL250_I thought Sex Object (Amazon) was a fantastic book. It was so real, so smart, and the observations mix with her own life perfectly.

    It’s full of killer observations about being a woman in the world, the way in which women are objectified, used, and abused. It captures horrifying things that happened – such as men on the subway being disgusting – in an unemotional way, and yet also makes it clear how traumatic those events were.

    There are also observations on what it’s like to be a famous feminist, the comments that get made, and how much harder the cruelty sticks than the complements.

    I’m not a close follower of Valenti’s work – this is the first book of hers I’ve read – but I loved it.

  • Book: 80,000 Hours

    Book: 80,000 Hours

    41BTYPVLGFL._SL250_.jpg80,000 Hours (Amazon) is a book more for early career people, so I didn’t get a huge amount out of it – other than validation on some of my choices and confirmation that others (**cough** grad school **cough**) were perhaps a bit questionable. There’s also a newsletter which I found interesting at first, but in general it is a lot of time, so as I’m pretty happy in my career and with what I’m doing it wasn’t worthwhile.

    There are two main things in the book. The first is about effective altruism – they make a good (albeit lengthy) case that often the best way to “do good” is to earn more and give it away strategically.

    The second idea builds on this, which is – how do you make a good career? How do you figure out what to do, and do it effectively. How do you build “career capital” (and what is career capital anyway).

    I wish they had a more succinct summary, but if you’re early in your career or contemplating a change, it could be helpful.

  • Book: Demystifying Public Speaking

    Book: Demystifying Public Speaking

    I got to read an early draft of Demystifying Public Speaking (Amazon) and it was exciting to revisit it and read the published version. It’s the perfect, to the point, read for those who are wondering how to get started public speaking, or facing their first talk unsure of how to prepare.

    The chapter on feedback is particularly helpful, and applies way beyond feedback on public speaking. The “diamonds and spades” cards framework is a helpful framework for processing all kinds of feedback to pick out what is most helpful and what to do with it. I also got a lot out of the practical preparation and now know much more about microphones and AV!

    Definitely worth reading if you are interested in public speaking. Or, if you aren’t – at least you’ll have a better idea of what you aren’t subjecting yourself to!

  • Book: Thinking Fast and Slow

    Book: Thinking Fast and Slow

    thinking fast and slow coverThinking Fast and Slow (Amazon) is about two modes of information – superficial and quick (system 1), and in depth and slow (system 2). It’s interesting to be reading this book after Brexit, amidst the US election, because what occurs to me is that the slogans of Brexit (now demonstrably false) and the nonsense of the Republican President Elect appeal to system 1 – superficially plausible (to a certain segment of the population), but don’t stand up to deeper thought or investigation.

    The fifth and final section about our remembering selves vs our experiencing selves was really interesting, and shows how much how we want to remember what we did influences what we choose to do – even when the choice is clearly worse.

    The rest of the book has some interesting factoids, like coming to a stop whilst walking when something significant arises (I had noticed that I do this! But now I see why), but feels drawn out for the amount of information it provides. Beyond our own thinking, I wanted to understand how to influence other peoples. How do you get someone who has accepted something superficially (system 1) to find it worth exploring in depth? How do you present information that can only be processed by system 2 thinking?

    Overall, I don’t recommend it. It’s a long read and the writer irritatingly self satisfied. Much of the more interesting content is available elsewhere in a better format.

  • Book: Why Him? Why Her?

    Book: Why Him? Why Her?

    why-him-why-herI’ve no recollection of buying Why Him? Why Her?: How to Find and Keep Lasting Love and no idea why I did. Some random mood 1-2 years ago, most likely – and carried around on my Kindle ever since. One chapter in I hated it. It was explaining personality traits by hormones, something that was debunked in Delusions of Gender and I have no time for. And then bolstering those statements by discussing trans people in a really offensive way.

    I nearly gave up, but persevered until I found some insight in it which left me asking the question – can you get something out of reading a book that you disagree with on a number of fundamental levels? Begrudgingly by the end I had to concede the answer was “yes”. It’s essentially a book about different personality types (roughly corresponding to Myers Briggs) are attracted to and interact with each other. There’s a test to identify your primary (mine was Adventurer) and secondary (Director) types and a break down of what different types are like in relationships, and how they interact with other types in relationships. I definitely identified with the characteristics in Adventurers/Directors, and explained some character traits of exes in a way that I found interesting.

    I made it to the end of the book and I feel like I learned some things, but I don’t recommend it. There have to be better sources of this kind of information.

  • Book: The Year Without Pants

    Book: The Year Without Pants

    year_without_pantsI found The Year Without Pants super bro, and despite the subtitle containing “the future of work” didn’t really feel like it said anything about the future of work. It’s a memoir of a year spent working remotely and a snapshot of a point in time at a particular company, and I found it a bit too rosy and self-congratulatory. I wanted to know what was hard? What was unexpected? What would he have done differently? And there wasn’t really anything like that.

    The most interesting part of it for me was learning about how a super useful plugin I use on my blog – Jetpack – came about. Software is built in context, and the what and the why of Jetpack was fascinating and insightful into what it means to build a company around OSS.

     

  • Book: The Laws of Simplicity

    Book: The Laws of Simplicity

    lawsofsimplicityI read The Laws of Simplicity (Amazon) on a recommendation, and really appreciated it. Both as a look back to where design seemed to be going when it was written (it was published in 2006), and for the laws themselves.

    1. Reduce. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
    2. Organize. Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
    3. Time. Savings in time appear like simplicity.
    4. Learn. Knowledge makes everything simpler.
    5. Differences. Simplicity and Complexity need each other.
    6. Context. What lies in the periphery of Simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
    7. Emotion. More emotions are better than less.
    8. Trust. In simplicity we trust.
    9. Failure. Some things cannot be made simple.
    10. The One. Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

    My favourite law was 5 – that Simplicity and Complexity need each other, because without Complexity we can’t appreciate Simplicity. It’s something that I’m continuing to noodle on.

    I found it a worthwhile read, because it made me think in new ways about design. The only thing I would say is that the language can be a bit academic in places.

  • Book: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

    Book: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

    what got you here won't get you there book coverWhat Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Amazon) initially irked me because it fell under a class of book that I call “Advice for White Men” (my blog post on this topic). It’s about how you can be oblivious to certain characteristics, and never receive feedback on them – and of course all but one of the examples in the book were men.

    My friend Camille observed to me once that men get too little feedback, but women get too much. And definitely one of the things that I’ve found helpful with coaching is sorting through feedback – some direct, and some implicit, and deciding what of it I should take.

    Anyway, even though I don’t think the content of the book applies as much to women, it was still useful, and once I got over my annoyance I found it so. How do you ask for feedback? How do you get someone else bought into you taking it and changing? It also gave me some observations that I could use to talk to other people about taking feedback and changing.