Day 2: Apgar Creek Campground to St Mary's

To my disappointment the day before, I had been told that Logan pass was closed for the season. Going to the Sun was one of the prettiest highways I had ever been on, and not only did the closure make it unavailable, it also meant that getting to the East side of the park where sunrises would be prettiest would be a long drive. I had decided to drive up as far as I could to get to Avalanche creek to see what I could see. Besides, someone on the plane the day before had told me that Avalanche lake was quite pretty.

I arrived at the Avalanche creek parking lot to find the place empty, and immediately got out my gear to start hiking up along the creek. I moved as quickly as I could, since I hoped to beat the sun to the lake. It turned out I needn't have bothered: Avalanche Lake was deeply fogged in, and all I got was a monochromatic view of the lake.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Fall Colors

I looked at the scene and decided that sticking around hoping for the sun to poke through with good light was futile, so I turned around and hiked out. As I hiked back down, I ran into a photographer who had just come from East Glacier. He told me that on that side, the road was open all the way to Logan's pass. Even though it was a long drive in terms of distance, it only took him two and a half hours, since most of the roads were rated for 70mph or faster. That made my decision to visit the East side of the park easy. I hiked rapidly down, slowing only to shoot the the river at a particularly pretty spot, and the gorge.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Journalism

The drive was indeed very quick, but I also had an additional mission: I had discovered that the gas line anti-freeze was a very bad fuel for my trangia alcohol stove. It burned fine and burned pretty hot, but sooted up my pot really badly, making clean up a disaster. I stopped at store after store looking for real methylated spirits, but eventually had to settle for rubbing alcohol, which was only 70% alcohol. All through the drive, however, I saw that the leaves had indeed changed colors on the East side of the park, which got me more and more excited as I headed towards St. Mary's.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Journalism

Upon reaching St. Mary's, I headed into the park and found it to be exceedingly windy. In fact, when I found a park bench and lit my stove, it took at least 30 minutes to boil water, since between the reduced alcohol content and the wind my poor stove was simply not getting a chance to heat up the pot at all. With lunch in me, I decided to drive up to Logan pass. It was windy and it was quite clear that as we got up the pass the weather would worsen. Nevertheless, who could pass up Logan pass?

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Journalism

There was quite a bit of construction on the road, and about 12 miles in we had to stop and wait for a pilot car to lead us to the top, since there was only one lane of road available for both directions. This turned out to be a good thing, since stopped cars attract big horned sheep, which came close enough for my point and shoot to capture. I realized at that point that keeping my SLR in the trunk of the car was a mistake.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Journalism

The top of the pass was cold, windy, and overcast. Between the wind and my shivering fingers, even tripod mounted shots were blurry. I spent about 20 minutes there wandering around and trying to get some images, but failed. On the way down, however, I stopped by sunrift gorge, which was the trailhead for my parents' first backpacking trip in 1994, and found a couple of good images.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Journalism

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Fall Colors

For sunset, I hung around lower in the park looking for a place where the sun might poke through the overcast, but that was not to be. I eventually gave up after shooting just tens of images in an hour, and went to St. Mary's lodge to eat dinner, not trusting my stove to cook anything with the increasingly strong wind and rain.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Fall Colors

I thought about finding a park campground, but upon driving around town saw an empty gravel space that seemed quite empty, so decided I would save $10 and park there and sleep.

Previous
Next

Day 1: Kalispell to Apgar Creek Campground

I flew from San Francisco to Seattle, and then from Seattle to Kalispell on a propeller plane. At Kalispell airport, the rental car company told me that they did not have the economy car that I had reserved, but could give me a mini-van for the same price. I thought for a bit and realized that I liked the idea of having a mini-van if I could fold down the seats and sleep in it. The woman behind the counter told me that if I didn't like it I could bring it back tomorrow and exchange it for an economy car in the morning.

I drove out of the airport and headed towards Kalispell to the Rocky Mountain Outfitter, which had been recommended to me by some locals. There, I asked for methylated spirits for my alcohol stove. They did not have it, but pointed me at the NAPA down the street to get gas-line anti-freeze, which I was assured would work just as well. On the way there I ran into the Superfoods market to stock up on camping supplies, and then proceeded to the Napa where $3 got me a 16oz bottle of gas line anti-freeze.

I asked if the folks there knew how to fold down the seats in my Chrysler mini-van, but they didn't know off the top of my head, so I decided to just head towards Glacier National Park to camp out. I had previously found a couch surfing place to stay, but they had so many guests at the moment that I felt really rude barging into an already over-crowded house.

The drive out to Glacier National Park was fast, and I quickly arrived at the entrance to realize that I had forgotten to borrow a national parks pass from someone prior to the trip. No problem, I would simply buy one, since supporting the national parks is far from the worst thing in the world to do. Upon asking where a good place to get a sunset was, the park ranger immediately said Apgar Creek campground, for a view of the sunset across Lake MacDonald. I drove to the campground and starting unpacking my tent before realizing that I should figure out how to remove all the seats in the van. After removing nearly everything from the van, I figured out how to fold back the rear row of seats, and one of the seats in the middle row. That let me lay out my sleeping bag and sleeping pad, and still have plenty of room to put the rest of my gear. I then realized that since I did not need a tent spot, I could conceivably share a camp site with someone else who was tent camping, and split the costs. I packed away my tent, never to use it for the rest of the trip, and then found a Scotsman nearby named Ian who agreed to split a site with me.

From 2010 Canadian Rockies Fall Colors

I then ran off to shoot the sunset at Lake MacDonald. The sunset was beautiful, with a light hint of alpenglow. I made dinner, chatted with the campers next door who were on a long road trip across the country, and then went to bed in my van, hoping to wake up to an early sunrise that would be just as spectacular.

Next

Review: It takes a genome

Disclosure: this was a free Kindle book a few days ago

It Takes a Genome has a very simple thesis: the conventional view of our genes as being responsible for various diseases such as cancer and diabetes should be viewed as symptomatic of another problem --- that as human beings we are operating way outside the environment in which our genes evolved, which is what makes such diseases common and gives the appearance of an epidemic.

To this end, Greg Gibson examines several diseases, breast cancer, diabetes, depression, Alzheimer's, and AIDs (the last is not a genetic disease, but he discusses how differently various peoples react to the disease, and how a small percentage of people seem to have immunity to AIDs). He debunks several myths about these diseases, including the "thrifty genes" hypothesis for accumulating weight and therefore getting diabetes. The discussion is non-technical, though Gibson does supply the names of the relevant genomes and genes for the layman. Very realistically, he points out how even in many extreme cases, having the relevant gene or genome only increases the likelihood of a certain disease by a few percentage point, with the rest attributed to other environmental factors. He emphasizes also how early we are in the current stage of investigation: there is so much complex interaction that being able to isolate a gene as a cause of a genetic disease can only happen in the most extreme cases. One thing that does come through in this book is how thoroughly focused on white people current genetic research is. There seem to be many results that only applies to Caucasians because that's all the studies that exist! (My perusal of my own 23AndMe genome report does show that this comes up a lot)

Ultimately, this short book makes its point clearly, and perhaps after this book you'll be a lot less excited about genetic services such as 23AndMe. I did notice when I signed up for the service how little actionable items I was able to extract from my own genome, so I've learned first hand how early we are in truly understanding what's going on out there.

While this book wasn't a waste of time to read, I would wait to check it out from the library rather than pay money for it. Mildly recommended.

Review: Mockingjay

Mockingjay is the last book of the Hunger Games serious. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire were previously reviewed here on this blog.

Both the previous books centered around the Hunger Games, a reality-TV show where children fight to the death in a pre-set arena. The protagonist of the first two novels, Katniss, showed herself to be resourceful in both action and in terms of manipulating the audience. This last book in the series, however, broadens out our view of the battlefield, which is that of the Rebels versus the Capitol. Katniss is rescued by the Rebels and turned into a PR symbol for anger against the regime.

In many ways, this book is more "realistic" than the previous ones. You wouldn't put a 17-year old in charge of running a battle plan, for instance. For another, if you did have a unique PR symbol, you wouldn't put her in danger or allow the enemy to score a PR coup by being able to attack her. On the other hand, what this did for the novel was to neuter the protagonist, making her helpless and powerless to make decisions that actually affect her world. This made me very impatient with the book. And seriously, there's not much realism about children killing each other off in a reality TV show anyway, so I think Collins should have just given in to the fantasy.

Then there's the interaction between Katniss and the rest of the characters that we've come to care about from the previous books. I certainly did not think that her behavior towards Peeta (a love interest from the previous book) was consistent with her loyalty in the previous books. Her relationship with Gale (the other point in the romantic triangle) didn't come across as being any better. If Katniss wasn't already established as a sympathetic heroine in the previous book I would think that she's an anti-hero. She's selfish, unthinking, and seemed to spend a lot of time whining.

The action picks up in the last third of the book, but even then, it all seemed futile. Any vestiges of competence seemed to have been wiped away from the characters, as they move only to serve the plot of the book, which I stopped caring about. The finale, when it came, seemed to tie up all the loose ends, but in reality glossed away all the complications that the author introduced, implying that she had written herself into a corner and did not know what to do. The first two books of the series carried a "recommended" tag, but I can't imagine that many readers being satisfied with this ending.

My Strong Frame is Dead

Dead Strong Frame

I was riding over to Google to visit some friends this morning, and when riding over a pedestrain bridge over 101, heard and felt this "snap!". I looked down at my bike and found that my bike had inadvertently shifted from the middle chainring to the granny gear. I shifted back to the middle chainring and things were fine, but the bike felt a bit funny.

At lunch, I looked at the frame and found that the chainstay where the spoke holder was was cracked. The crack didn't go all the way around the frame, but it was obvious that I wasn't going to descend Page Mill Road on the bike even one more time. After meeting various people (every time I visit, I run into so many people I know that it takes far longer than I expect), I visited Cynthia and she observed that the bottom bracket area was cracked as well, which it was, and almost all the way around. It looked like the weld had just about fallen apart!

The Bicycle Outfitter thought that the frame was not repairable, but Carl wants to see it anyway. In any case, I am very very grateful that my super fast descent on Wednesday didn't result in anything untoward!

I've never had a frame crack on me like this before, but this frame was my only single bike for about 2 years, surviving rough commutes, tours across France and Hokkaido, and of course, frequent rough stuff riding. On the other hand, my previous frames had done the same for many many years without any trouble. I'm not usually sentimental about equipment, but since I had a big hand in designing the frame, I feel the loss a bit deeper this time than previously. So here's a retrospective on the bike on this blog:

• Building a custom frame part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• First Impressions
• Long Term Review

We'll see what Carl says when he gets it!

My Second Book

I meant to write about my kickstarter project failure. In some ways, it shouldn't have been a surprise. $3000 is a lot of money to raise for a book about cycle touring, which many might not believe is unique enough. Nevertheless, the project continues apace. If you've contributed to the kickstarter project, I've already posted information on how to get access to the mailing list that provides previews of the book, which has entered what I call, "Content Complete." In other words, all the text is written, and I've already done a preliminary layout. I have a couple more items to write, but after this unless there are glaring holes in the content I don't anticipate adding a lot more material. In many ways, this book has been a blast to write, since I enjoy cycle touring, and tearing through my photo collection looking for appropriate photos to illustrate the book brings back so many memories.

My current plan is to finish up the writing by the middle of next week, take a couple of weeks off, and then come back to grind out the remainder: fixing up typos, proofing, dealing with photo credits and various minutia. The goal is to launch e-book sales by Thanksgiving, with an eye to sourcing printing and production by the end of the year for delivery early next year. Having e-book sales also lets me figure out how the book will be received and lets me plan a print run accordingly. In some ways, the e-book availability is what the software industry would call a "soft-launch".

As for what next. Well, I have a few ideas, but looking at my top two ideas, neither of them would benefit from a kickstarter-like funding option, so if/when I get cracking on them, I'll stay mum about them until such time as I need a group of "beta-readers."

Review: Memoirs of a Fellwanderer

Back in 2006, Lisa and I walked Alfred Wainwright's Coast to Coast walk, still by far the best long walk I've done, and certainly the most romantic. When I first read Wainwright's book describing the walk, I thought the place must have been amazingly beautiful to have someone devote so much time to doing the book: every page was hand-written, and hand-drawn. The text was right-justified by hand! Imagine my amazement when I read in Memoirs of a Fellwanderer that he had gotten started without justifying the text and then threw out the first hundred pages after a year's work to start over so he could hand-justify the text without hyphens!

One of my friends once accused me of being far more in love with places of natural beauty than I ever was with any woman. All I can say is that he needs to read this book, because Wainwright's memoir truly does describe a man who was obsessed and delighted by the Lake District and the Highlands of Scotland, to the point of (1) reorganizing his career so he could live in Kendal so he could have time to explore the fells on weekends (2) treating his relationships with women in terms of how they would help him achieve his goals of wandering in the mountains. In the foreward, his second wife wrote:

After one or two sorties to the Pennine Way when I was left to my own devices between the dropping off and the picking up, I had the temerity to ask if I could accompany him. He looked surprised, was silent for a few seconds and then said I could if I didn't talk!

He even mentions that the big feature of his second wedding was that his wife had a car! His first wife barely got 2 sentences in the memoir. Yet when he writes about the fells (one of the chapters is titled, A love-letter to the fells), this is what he says:

Words are inadequate to express and explain the emotion impact the fells had on me. During the making of the books they dominated my thoughts. They held me in chains... I was living a double life. I was completely dedicated to the books and spent every available moment on them... Domestic relationships withered and died... On a day when I didn't have to wear a collar and tie I was a boy again. If I was heading for the hills, and not the office, I could set forth singing, not audibly, heaven forbid; just in my heart. I was off to where the sheep were real, not human.

Of interest to those who are self-publishers, Alfred Wainwright was a self-publisher as well. He did so for two reasons. One was that he couldn't bear the idea of rejection, and decided (probably rightly) that no existing publisher would look at his work and understand what they were, and would demand changes rather than printing it in entirety as he wanted done. The second was control: he really did not care about making money, but wanted his books exactly the way he wanted it.

As his fame wore on, he took to more and more extreme circumstances under-which he would try to avoid people. He started hiking at dusk, and would spend the nights on the mountains pacing back and forth, since sleeping was impossible. He would then hike back down in mid-morning when the hikers would start to show up. He would even lie to people who recognized him, denying that he was Alfred Wainwright.

If his ornery nature was all there was, I would not recommend this book. But what comes through in this book, page after page, illustration after illustration (yes, the book is lavishly illustrated with his famous ink-drawings, frequently accompanied with the photographs he took while walking) is his love of nature and his dedication to the art of walking and solitude. The book is a quick read: I picked it up this morning and finished reading it 2 hours later, but the illustrations will haunt you and draw you back to the book again and again. Certainly looking over this book has made me want to visit the Lake District again!

Needless to say, I highly recommend this book, and am glad I made an exception to my "no paper books" rule to acquire this book. It's not easily found, and wasn't available at my local library, but I think once you see the ink illustrations you will agree that it is well worth owning the book. If you are a hiker or outdoors person, you really owe it to yourself to read what it's like to be a consummate nature lover.

Review: Breaking Windows

Moishe Lettvin told me that Breaking Windows was a great book about the internal politics inside Microsoft during the time of the internet browser wars. At that time, two camps emerged inside Microsoft: Brad Silverberg's "Internet Doves" team advocated competing on an equal basis, and adopting the internet as the new programming model. Jim Allchin's "Windows Hawks" wanted to tie everything back to Windows, still Microsoft's #1 revenue generator and franchise today. (Disclosure: as a poor starving grad. student at UW, Brad Silverberg once gave Pardo and I a ride to the start of a mountain bike ride, rode with us masterfully --- through water that came up to our knees, no less, and then bought us all burgers for dinner)

The book's organized by people, rather than by timeline, which makes the narrative really confusing at times: the windows monopoly trial was revisited no less than three times, each time with a different character in play. The book's subtitle is How Bill Gates Fumbled The Future of Microsoft, and indeed, there's a lot of analysis of Bill Gates' approach to corporate strategy: everything had to tie back to windows, even Internet Explorer 4, and that led to the entire bundling charade that gave us a big trial with David Boies. The trial coverage was very well done, and Bank even got Boies to talk about how he would have approached the trial differently as the Microsoft counsel if he had been on the other side.

One thing that surprised me was that Bank portrays Gates' departure from Microsoft as CEO as being an ouster, rather than a voluntary relinquishing of the reins. That wasn't obvious to me from the press coverage at the time, and given that Microsoft's stock price at the time was incredibly high, I'm not sure how much credibility to give it.

Another interesting bit to read is how sympathetic Bank was to Steve Ballmer, who's been much vilified in the press for his antics. Then there's comments and complaints that should be very familiar to anyone who's seen a relatively small company grow a bit too fast:

Many of the processes that worked when Microsoft was small didn't "scale" now that it was big. Half of the nearly forty thousand employees had been hired during the previous five years. Internal issues were consuming more and more time---people complained about the need to respond to nearly a hundred e-mail messages a day, to attend endless, repetitive "off-sites" to adjust to yet another reorganization. Don't hire any more people, many employees told Ballmer. Don't make the company any bigger or we're all going to leave.
Both old-timers and newcomers were frustrated by the increasing volume of internal politics...

What impressed me from 1995 to 1998 was how quickly Microsoft pivoted to come from behind in the browser wars to utterly dominating and crushing Netscape. As someone who was working at a small internet startup at that time, I can testify that it wasn't just about being technically superior, but also at that time Microsoft approached even small companies with a degree of humility that was surprising to us, given their reputation. It was gratifying to me to see that this turnaround was largely master-minded by Brad Silverberg, who struck me as a nice guy in my one fleeting encounter with him. Nevertheless, for his heretical ideas for suggesting that Windows take a back seat in favor for a full-on internet-first approach, Silverberg was ousted, his team dismantled, and he quit in frustration. One can only speculate how different things would have been if he had been allowed to run with his idea and what was obviously an incredibly well-executing team.

Microsoft was smart enough to put Silverberg on a retainer so he wouldn't go to a competitor, and eventually tried to offer Silverberg his old job back. Yet Silverberg turned Ballmer's offer down:

"The company is so wrapped up in its shorts that it can't get anything done," he sighed in an e-mail to Ben Slivka, his old ally from the browser and Java battles. Microsoft might stil be loaded with brainpower, but it was getting only pennies on the dollar. "So much IQ is wasted.

When I first joined Google, I asked one of the execs a question: "Did Google feel that it had anything to learn from any other companies in its space?" The answer I got back surprised me with its arrogance: "No, there's no other precedent for having to deal with scale as much as we are." Reading this book made me realize that the exec was wrong. There's plenty to learn from Microsoft's mistakes, and it's too bad that many companies seem doomed to repeat them, though perhaps from a different angle.

Regardless, this book is compelling and while confusing at times, a fun read. Recommended.

Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinthis a very dark fairy tale. Most fantasy movies are for kids, and this one breaks the mold. My parents have taken me to more scary movies when I was a child, but I don't think most American parents will be willing to subject their kids to that kind of horror.

The story is set during the Spanish Civil War. The protagonist of the movie, Ofelia and her pregnant mother travel to join her stepfather who's job it is to wipe out or contain the rebels in the forest. During her travels, she sets off a chain of events that lead to a visit by a fairy and a troll who tells her that she is a fairy princess trapped in the human world and must do three tasks in order to return lands of the fairy.

The first task seems in keeping with the traditional fairy tale. At the same time, we are exposed to the clashes between the rebels and the soldiers, and the cruelty of the war between them. Ofelia's mother takes ill, and the troll gives her a solution to help make her mother better. Ofelia fails at her second task. However, she is given one last chance by the troll, and her world falls apart while attacks between both sides of the war are in progress.

Filled with allegory, horror, and unflinching realism (yes, there's lots of blood in this movie, and I jerked involuntarily during a few scenes), the ending is both unexpected and entirely in keeping with the movie. The actors/actresses are very well done, and the cinematography captivating: it is clear that Guillermo del Toro put a ton of work into imagining every aspect of the movie, from color to costumes.

I enjoyed the movie, but I waver between thinking of the ending as a cop-out, and considering it a smart twist on the audience's sensibilities. The psychological tricks the movies plays on you are also not what I consider fair. Having said all that, I don't regret the time I spent watching the film at all. I just wouldn't show it to anyone squeamish.

Review: ECONned

ECONned was written by the founder of Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith, a well-known economics blogger. I read it every day, and those of you who've been following my reader or buzz stream probably have read one or two articles sourced from Yves.

This was a tough book to read, not just because the subject material is dense, but because frequently I got really mad at the institutions involved and had to put it down so that I could calm down a bit. Smith attacks the various institutions that led up to the massive financial debacle that we are still suffering from today.

First, she attacks the economics profession, for in its search of beautiful mathematical models for the economy, ignored many basic problems as long as the mathematics looked good. For instance, when Mandlebrot showed that prices followed the Levy distribution, rather than the normal or log-normal distribution, the economics profession chose to disregard his results:

The problem with Mandelbrot's work, however, was it threatened the entire edifice of not simply financial economics, but the broader efforts to use formulas to describe economic phenomena. Levy distributions didn't merely have difficult math; that might have been an intriguing challenge. There wasn't even a way to calculate Levy's "alpha" reliably, although Fama's efforts with market data did show that it was less than two, which confirmed the fear that the distributions were not normal.

She then attacked deregulation and the accounting scams within the big wall street firms which allowed traders to book profits for in advance of when they were realized, leading to the predictable gaming of the system and results. Then you got to read about what Alan Greenspan did not do, and how keeping interest rates low really sparked the housing bubble. Lest you think Smith is a liberal, Obama's democratic administration doesn't fare any better: Geithner, in particular comes off looking mendacious and incompetent.

The writing is clear and competent. You'll read about CDOs, subprime, and how loans get securitized at a level far deeper than you'll see in The Big Short, for instance. Having said that, don't expect there to be human interest stories like the one in The Big Short. This is by far a dryer and more expansive book. If The Big Short is the Hollywood story with the happy ending, ECONned is the gritty independent documentary film determined to show you all the grimy details behind the story. Finishing the book is almost certain to leave you depressed about the future of finance in the USA, and with a deep distrust of the financial industry, mixed with a little bit of envy at the chutzpah it has displayed in thoroughly gaming the system and successfully bribing politicians and its regulators into going along with the best interests of the incredibly wealthy financiers.

If you have the stomach for this, this is a highly recommended read.

Trip Report: Lost Coast Hike

Lost Coast Weekend

Other people's Photos

• Johannes's Photos
• Tracy's Photos
• Josh Butler's Photos
• Steve Langdon's photos
• Kirsten Yee's photos
• Matt Kane's photos

I just got back from a 3 day Lost Coast trip with the Google Outdoors club. I've owned the Lost Coast map for years and years, but never got around to organizing it. Before I left Google, I loaned Kirsten Yee the map and asked her to consider organizing a trip for when I could make it. She picked labor day weekend, and given that nearly everyone else on the trip had pesky day jobs, the car pool did not leave Google until 3:30pm, which with a combination of traffic, stops for food, and coordination problems, led us to get to the Black Sands beach trail head at midnight. The shuttle picked us up at 1:00am, and dropped us off at Mattole (on the other end) at 3:00am. I could not sleep much during the transfer.

I had dragged Tracy along, since she had expressed interest in hiking after having given up on cycling a few years ago. Lisa did not choose to come along, since the hike, with its many tide restricted zones would require us to hike somewhat to a schedule dictated by the tide tables. I was also concerned that Lisa would not be able to keep up with what I expected to be a very strong group of hikers, since she was flagging in the Alps earlier this year on an unloaded hike. Other than Kirsten, the other person I knew on the trip was Johannes Henkel, whom I had not hiked with since he became an uber-outdoors man. Other folks who came along included Devin, Matt, Sonya, Daniella, Josh, and Steve, none of whom I had met before. There was a flurry of e-mails prior to the trip, first pointing to Arturo's and Marc Merlin's trip reports. Kirsten arranged a shuttle service with the Lost Coast Shuttle, negotiating a price of $45/person for the transfer.

We had to hike in on the trail at least 500 feet from the trail head before pitching camp. Fortunately, I had put up my tent often enough, and so with Tracy's help managed to get it up and facing into the wind in order to minimize wind noise. We put in sleeping pads, sleeping bags, crawled in and crashed.

 

From Lost Coast Weekend

Because of the tides, we had to get up at 7:30 am, and make it past to Randall Creek before 4:00pm. As usual, I was awake around 7:00am. There was fog outside my tent, but the wind had kept the tent walls dry, and my sleeping bag was not even damp, so I immediately packed it up and started getting ready for breakfast. I woke Tracy up, and told her that we should pack up, hike back to the start of the trail head to the campground, and use the running water and toilets there to make breakfast, since that would be more sheltered and I didn't feel like digging toilets. By the time we were finished packing up, Kirsten had roused every body and there was general movement all over the tent site. I ran into Sonya, who had a Soto Micro-Regulator stove whom she had never used before, and a canister of fuel. She had e-mailed me before asking me to help show her how to use it, so together with Tracy and I, we headed back to the trail head where conveniently enough, there was a man with a camper van in a campsite who was happy to let us make breakfast there in exchange for helping load his motorcycle onto his rack. "I forgot to get the instruction manual!" said Sonya. "This thing has one knob and one button. I think we can figure it out without the manual." Sure enough, screwing the stove into the canister, turning the knob, and pushing the button lit up the stove with no problems. We filled up my pots and started hot water going, while Sonya went back to get the others.

Organizing 10 people is never easy, so I decided that since I wasn't the group leader, I would have the luxury of going on ahead on schedule regardless of how far the others were along for breakfast. Tracy and I were therefore done and ready to go by 9:00am, and with our bags packed and lunch out of the bear canister so we could easily geto to them, started walking on the trail after letting Kirsten know that we were going on ahead. On our way past the tents, we ran into Sonya, who immediately decided to join us. Steve Langdon was also already packed and came along with us.

From Lost Coast Weekend

The fog was really thick, and we could barely see past the beach to the water as we walked on the beach. Walking on sand sounds romantic, but the reality is that you sink into loose sand and then have to lift your foot up from that. If wearing low cut shoes like my running shoes, sand gets into the shoe as well. Steve had hiking boots with gaiters, which I thought was a really good idea except that I hated hiking boots. I was therefore glad to find that there was an official hiking trail off the beach within half a mile of the start, which would lead us easily and quickly to the Punta Gorda lighthouse.

From Lost Coast Weekend

By the time we got to the lighthouse, the fog had cleared enough that we could take off our outer layers and put on sunscreen. Punta Gorda was where the first "low tide only" area was, but it didn't seem very hazardous. The group caught up to us at this point and we were surprised to see Daniella and Josh not there. Kirsten assured us that they were OK, and we pressed onwards. After the boulder hopping which was neither difficult nor extensive, the trail resumed and headed up into a headland. There had been a debate as to where to have lunch, but the place was pretty scenic so I voted for lunch. Daniella and Josh caught up to us in the midst of lunch so we were all together again. Everyone seemed rather amused that I had bought some Bacon Spam for lunch, and they were even more amused that I had brought along my electric toothbrush. "Don't talk to me about ultralight backpacking!" declared Johannes.

From Lost Coast Weekend

After lunch, the route stayed high, granting us nice views of the ocean and the beach below. After the Cooksie Spur trail, however, the trail dived back to the beach for more boulder hopping, which was extensive at this point. At one point, in fact, the place narrowed and you had to time your scramble in between waves to get around the point. Steve led the way here, being tall and with gaiters, and I followed but was not as agile as he was, and got my shoes wet over the crossing. Steve pointed out that the rocks on the other side were slippery, so he put his pack down and hopped onto the saddle to help others across. I stayed close to try to catch people and also to point to the natural step with a firm footing. I'm pretty sure my presence was superfluous with Steve being in a great position to help the others. In fact, when Johannes slipped, I could not save either him or the camera from hitting the ground.

From Lost Coast Weekend

After that, the coast looked desolate, with the loose gravel causing a slip-slip action whenever I took a step. Coupled with wet socks, this quickly created a blister in my foot. I started lagging behind as others moved forward ahead of me. Daniella and I walked side by side and after a while I asked her if she had a bandaid or moleskin so I could keep the blister from chafing. She indeed had bandaids, but neither she nor Johannes had moleskin. I applied a bigger bandaid over a smaller one and called it good. Johannes was bleeding from his fall, and his camera was also apparently busted from the fall. I felt sorry for him but he seemed philosophical, pointing out that his camera had been heavily used.

From Lost Coast Weekend

We got to the end of the boulder hopping at Randall Creek, where everyone else had stopped to get fresh water. Between the bandages, the drying socks, and some welcome shade I started to feel better. We had a debate as to whether this was Randall Creek, but rather than scout ahead, we decided to press on since it was early, with me and Sonya leading the way. The track leaving Randall Creek turned into a wide double-track jeep trail (which should have tipped us off as to where we were). After a mile, we got to an intersection asnd saw that this was the intersection with the Spanish Ridge Trail, which confirmed that we had indeed walked past Randall Creek. We waited at the intersection for the others to figure out where we wanted to go. Another group of backpackers showed up and asked us if we had seen their companion, a 6' tall man with a black mustache. We had seen no such person, but they decided to talk to us further. "He's a very strong hiker, but unfortunately also has the least good judgement amongst us."

When the others caught up to us, we quickly decided to stop at Spanish Creek, which apparently wasn't a great campground but would keep us from having to backtrack. Upon reaching Spanish Creek, however, I saw to my dismay that the area around the trail seemed pretty exposed. We saw other backpackers staking out area close to the beach but it looked pretty exposed to the wind to me. I persuaded Sonya to put down her pack and scout with me a bit on the south end of the river, but we quickly ran into vegetation that posed as a barrier. Sonya went to talk to others while I persuaded Josh to come with me to scout the North end of the creek, hoping that as we went upriver we would find something. Sure enough, near the north end there was what looked like a nicely constructed campground, with logs for sitting and natural tenting areas. The ground was hard, but the shade and shelter would be welcome. It took a good 30 minutes to get back to where everyone was, organize the group, and then lead everyone back there.

From Lost Coast Weekend

Folks seemed pleased with the campground, and then it was a matter of pitching tents, getting water, and preparing for dinner after a long day without having had much sleep before. Unfortunately, my Katadyn Mini Ceramic Microfilter's ceramic element chose to give up the ghost at this point, so we were down to only one filter plus our water bottle filters. Sunset was gorgeous, from the beach, however, and very unusual, since the coast was usually fogged over at that point and we normally did not expect views!

From Lost Coast Weekend

Kirsten announced that tomorrow would be an 8:30am departure to try to get past the next high tide section so we did not have to get up at 5am the next day. I wasn't happy about having to do another 12 miles tomorrow, but went along with the group. I did point out that given that our 7:30am wake up this morning led to a 9:00am departure, an 8:30am departure would require the reverie to be at 7:00am. Kirsten agreed and I went to bed right after that.

 

The windy night made it actually harder to sleep than I expected, despite my fatigue, but it also meant that the coast was clear when we woke up! After breakfast, Tracy and I were again packed before everyone else and headed off down the trail. Sonya asked us to wait a few seconds so she could join, and so we did. Steve started to join us but realized he had not put on any sunscreen and so stopped to put on sunscreen. The jeep track took us past a couple of cabins and Kinsey Ridge trail, and then after that back down towards the beach. There was not even a hint of fog along the coast, and Sonya blazed the trail at a relentless, blistering pace which led me to dub her Hiking Robot Girl(tm). We walked past another cabin and then a gorgeous looking house that looked brand new. The forest above us, however, showed signs of a fairly recent burn. We guessed that the house was resupplied by airplane.

At Rattlesnake Ridge Trail we stopped to get our bearings and check where we were. It was ambiguous at this point whether we were about to start the next bouldering section but we had gone quite a while. Tracy and Steve, who were behind us had barely crested the trail when Hiking Robot Girl strapped on her pack and headed off down the beach. I followed suit. It became clear that having only one hiking stick was not enough for me to keep pace with Sonya. I would wobble and slip over one stone after another, only to watch as she hopped lightly from one boulder to another like a ballerina. The beach, however, was beautifully desolate, looking a lot like the opening scene of the movie Inception. We confirmed when we caught up to another pair of backpackers that we were indeed in the tidal restricted zone. We walked on for quite a bit before getting hungry, whereupon I realized that Tracy had half my lunch (I had her sardines, and she had my crackers). I cleverly used this to get Hiking Robot Girl(tm) to stop and wait for our two friends.

From Lost Coast Weekend

I could barely move at that point but Sonya, upon seeing Tracy and Steve, dropped her pack, walked over, and waved them over. Steve, Tracy, and I had a sardine, bread, and crackers lunch while Sonya ate a veggie-turkey sandwich.

After lunch, we walked only 500 meters before running smack into Shipman creek, a beautifully shaded campground and creek where we could resupply. The shade and sweet water looked so inviting, and if I had had half a brain I would have realized that this was a superior place to stop: Gritchell creek was past the tidal restrict zone while Shipman creek wasn't, but Gritchell creek was well known as a bad place to stop and Shipman creek looked really inviting. Being in the middle of the tide restricted zone shouldn't have bothered us, as we would have until 8am the next day to finish the next 2 miles, easily accomplished by skipping a hot breakfast. While we were refilling our bottles the others caught up to us, not having had lunch. We were still excessively focused on Gritchell creek for the night, and so took leave of the group, once again with Sonya blazing the trail.

From Lost Coast Weekend

We first came across a Sea Otter sunbathing. At first we thought it might be in trouble but when it raised its head to look at us it was clear that it was just taking a nap. We shot a few pictures of it and pressed on. Sonya then found a bottle with a message in it, extracted it, read the prayer written on the piece of paper in it, and then replaced it, adding a note as to where and when it was found, and then returned it to the ocean.

From Lost Coast Weekend

When we got to Gritchell creek, I was aghast. There was not a shred of vegetation, and the place was hot. Climbing over a bunch of downed trees at the river mouth, Sonya and I found that there was maybe one or two camping spots, but definitely not for a party of 10. It was too hot at that moment and the direct sun was no good for putting up a tent (UV deteriorates Nylon), so we huddled in the small postage-stamp sized bit of shade and discussed our options. The rest of the group caught up to us at 4:15pm, and we had more debate before someone suggested that we ask the other campers who had come from Shelter cove what Horse Mountain creek looked like. When the answer came back that Horse Mountain creek wasn't any better, we decided to stay here rather than backtrack to Shipman creek.

From Lost Coast Weekend

Between the sun exposure and the hike, I was cooked and sat down in the shade to read while the others jumped into the ocean. The shade was quite pleasant and I enjoyed the solitude. After a bit the shade disappeared and I had to retreat deeper past the logs to get more shade, and the others came by to rinse off after a short bath in the ocean.

From Lost Coast Weekend

We saw quite a few snakes in the water but none of them came near the bathing area, though a wood rat did. Dinner was had over sunset, and with the sun coming down the place became cool enough to contemplate sleeping. With no a single cloud in the sky we had the unusual opportunity to see the stars from the beach. I went to bed soon after 9:00pm after chatting with Johannes and the others, and missed Devin's rendition of Cree, with the words "Run" apparently scaring the other campers into thinking that something untoward was about to happen.

 

From Lost Coast Weekend

Our last morning came too early, and this time, Tracy and I left the camp without any stragglers. We speculated as to how far we would get before Hiking Robot Girl would catch us, and sure enough, by 0.5 miles we would look behind us to see a figure walking behind us implacably. We started feeling like someone from The Terminator, looking back to see a humanoid figure getting closer and closer without any visible effort. It was a good thing we knew Sonya was friendly!

From Lost Coast Weekend

By 0.82 miles we were caught and there went the relaxing pace Tracy and I were setting, after a stop in which Sonya gave Tracy a blister bandage. The last 3 miles went without incident and we were soon back at the parking lot where we had arrived at midnight 3 nights ago, looking very different than when we had departed. The place was gorgeous, I had gotten to know more people and was once again reminded of how much fun backpacking was, with great company and gorgeous scenery. I still hated bear canisters, but the kind of isolation you can only get in America made it worth while.

From Lost Coast Weekend

Kindle 3 First Impressions

I wasn't planning to upgrade to the Kindle 3, but someone I helped out earlier this year gifted me the 3G+WiFi version, and it arrived today, just before the lost coast weekend.

From Kindle 3 Unboxing

I'll let others do the full review. Here are the salient points for me:

• The charging indicator is red/green, but unlike charging indicators designed by other companies that don't have color-blind males on staff (I'm looking at you, Garmin!), the Kindle's charging indicator is distinguishable by me. This is a basic usability thing and I'm always annoyed when companies get it wrong.
• It's slimmer than before, but not really all that much smaller.
• Page turns are much faster than the K1. This is a very nice feature.
• Wow, the screen has improved dramatically! The picture below looks like the text and diagram is written on the plastic, but it actually is the Kindle's display!
• It's lighter. Significantly lighter. Very nice for cycling and backpacking trips.
• Global 3G coverage. No more airport bookstores. Enough said.
• Categories are nice. I could spend weeks categorizing my books.

From Kindle 3 Unboxing

All in all, if you have a K1 and skipped the K2 "upgrade" because of the battery issue and the lack of SD card, I think this is the one to jump to. The increased battery life and storage means that the battery and SD card is no longer something of concern.

Recommended!

2nd Printing of Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups Sold Out

The second printing of An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups just sold out this week. Fortunately, I anticipated this a while back and ordered a third printing, which showed up on time so there's no interruption in sales (unlike the previous time). It's only been about 6 months since I started shipping this book, but even so I can already see the huge impact e-books are having on the market. When I first started shipping books, most of my sales were paper copies. By the end of May, half my sales were electronic and the other half were paper. At this point, I'm selling 3 electronic copies for every paper copy of the book that's shipped!

Unlike a traditional publisher, however, I am delighted by this turn of events. As described earlier, I've set up my pricing so that I am indifferent to paper sales or electronic sales: I make pretty much the same amount of profit for either. E-books take up no inventory, suffer no shipping costs, and can be revised instantly. If this trend keeps up, this printing ought to last me for at least 6 months.

I am very grateful to every one of you who's made this book a success (by self-publishing standards). I hope my next book does as well.

Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the last book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy . The previous books in the series The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire were previously reviewed here. This book cannot stand alone, and should be read after the previous title in the series. It also kept me up late last night reading, which is something that a book hasn't done to me in a while.

With this novel Larsson does not set up a mystery at all. This is a thriller through and through. The enemy this time is a government secret agency that covered up certain events in the past, leading to the events in the previous book. Many have referred to this book as redefining the entire series as a feminist trilogy, and I can see where they are coming from. The author makes use of many quotes in the book, and it is clear where his sympathy lies. Yet unlike other books of this nature the plot, story, and characters do not merely serve to deliver the message. There are many men who are sympathetic characters, and the villains, while coming across as evil, aren't caricatures. The novel moves at a fast pace after setup: there's no exposition explaining the characters or the situation, as you are expected to have come off the previous novel directly.

As a techie, the book is a lot of fun, with constant name drops of model numbers and brand names, almost to the point where I wonder whether Apple and Palm managed to get product placement in the novel by paying Larsson. There are a few places where I thought the depiction was unrealistic, but hey, it's fiction.

Larsson died almost immediately after delivering the manuscripts, and one can't help but wonder if he had known it was coming: all the loose ends are tied up very very neatly, and all the characters reach a resolution with regards to their personal lives, even in places where I thought a little bit of mystery would have been better. All in all, I enjoyed this at least as much as any LeCarre I've read, and the prose is quite a bit less dense, so I have to recommend it.

Shameless Promotion: Last 6 days to pre-order "Independent Cycle Touring"

There are only 6 days left to get in on the pre-orders for Independent Cycle Touring. I'm about $1000 from the pledges being completed. Kickstarter guarantees that if the funding goal is not reached, nobody pays anything. I'll go one further. If the funding goal is not reached and you're a $100 level (or more) supporter, I'll set up a Google group and you'll get to preview the book regardless, while I'm working on it. (i.e., the Kibitzer option is for real, but you won't have to fork out the dough if the project does not meet its funding goals)

A large chunk of the book is written. At this point I have one more chapter to write, a bunch of appendices (which might turn out to be substantial), layout, photography, and other niceties like cross referencing and indexing. That'll take another couple of months, but I'm aiming to have this on track for ebook release end of the year, and print copies availability a couple of months after that. Obviously, if I find major missing topics that'll slip, but that's why I have a beta audience.

The last few days will be nail biting for me, so rather than stay home and keep hitting refresh on the Kickstarter page, I'm going to spend labor day weekend hiking the Lost Coast.

It's Real!

The Copyright Office has acknowledged that I the copyright to my book! I guess that's not too surprising, but it took a few months for them to mail this certificate to me.

Review: Success Built to Last

It seems that there's no business franchise that can't be over sold and over cooked. Built to Last was a great book, and I still tell people to read it frequently. For instance, one of the sections on "cult-like culture" applies to nearly every successful startup and big company I've ever seen, and a good sign for every company.

Success Built to Last aims to apply similar principles to personal success: interview and survey all successful people, and then see what they have in common. I consider it an abysmal failure. First of all, this process can't distinguish between people who are great con-men, and people who are genuinely successful. For instance, Robert Kiyosaki is given equal billing with Muhammad Yunnus. John McCain, for instance, who was widely considered to have betrayed his own values since the 2000 election is selected as a successful person, but Julia Butterfly Hill wasn't considered successful, probably because she's not a billionaire.

There are lots of pithy quotes in the book, all centered around having strong values and pursuing them. Well, there are lots of people who pursue their strong values right down to murdering their roommates because of religions differences. I don't consider that in and of itself desirable, if there is no way to correct gross mis-judgments at the base level like that. The book does cover people recovering from setbacks and failures, but nothing at that level!

All in all, I consider this book a waste of time and not worth anybody's time. Not recommended.

Review: Moon

I heard all sorts of things about Moon over the last year or two, and deliberately kept myself spoiler free until I found some time to watch it, and what a worthwhile 93 minutes it was!

The premise of the movie is that mankind has developed a usable fusion process that requires helium 3 from the dark side of the moon. All action in the movie itself happens on the moon base that processes and ships helium 3 back to Earth. The movie quickly establishes what normal routine is in the base, and then quickly dives into the plot involving the lone operator of the base, Sam Bell. He's not alone, however, and has a robot assistant, the Gerty 3000, which is used to excellent effect in the movie, constantly confounding audience expectations.

To say more than this will spoil the plot (in fact, you are advised not to even read the Amazon.com reviews). Suffice to say the mystery is interesting and fair (you could figure it out with all the clues), and the resolution satisfying. Highly recommended. While the movie is rated R, as far as I can tell the only reason it got the "R" was for a very innocuous shower scene with Sam Rockwell (shot entirely from the back).

Review: The Big Bang Theory Season Two

For whatever reason, the library delivered my copy of The Big Bang Theory Season 2 super fast. Season 2 is much more of a mixed bag than Season 1 was.

The in-jokes are still funny, and everything's still pretty accurate. And come on, a TV show that has George Smoot as a guest star can't be all that bad. The various episodes range in themes, from parental approval/disapproval of their geeky children, to on-line gaming addiction. My big problem with the series is that it suffers from episodic amnesia, which I suppose is what people expect from a sitcom. There is continuity in that references to the idiosyncrasies of various characters get made over time, but by and large, each episode stands on its own.

One semi-tragic element of the show is that one of the characters, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, displays nearly every symptom of Asperger's Syndrome. It's all played for laughs, but I wonder why none of the other characters ever point it out. I guess it would make the show less funny.

In any case, I'll check out the third season from the library when it comes out, so this show still comes recommended.

Panoramas from the Tour

I've been very frustrated with the way Picasa displays my panoramas. The down-sampling sucks, but even if I upload full resolution panoramas, unless you download them to your PC, you have no way to scroll, click, and zoom through the panoramas.

Then the other day, I noticed that PhotoSynth has been integrated into Microsoft ICE. ICE is what I use to composite the images. There are other free tools available, but none are as easy to use as ICE. PhotoSynth, however, is the other half: it solves the viewing problem by allowing the user to pan, scroll, and even zoom in through a high resolution image. Apparently, you can even use it to take a picture of a room from all angles, and PhotoSynth will create a model and let you walk around through it virtually. This is very cool stuff. Yes, it's 100% Windows only (did you expect anything else from Microsoft), but it definitely shows off my Panoramas in full glory. After you've clicked through on the above, visit my Synth Gallery to see all the others.

P.S. Here's one from last year:

Review: Crystal Nights and Other Stories

Crystal Nights and Other Storiesis Greg Egan's latest short story collection. I gave Egan's last book a poor review, but that was a novel, not a short story collection. Egan's talent at crafting a good short story is second only to Ted Chiang's, and this book definitely shows it off in spades.

One big theme of the book is the implications of quantum mechanics. Three stories revolve around it: Oracle, Border Guards, and Singleton. For Border Guards, Egan even invents the sport of Quantum Soccer.

Several stories deal with computation and simulation: Crystal Nights, in particular, but also many of the other stories, including one, Steve Fever, in which humans are used as pieces in an automaton. Another related story, Tap, reflects on the relationship between experience and words, and introduces several concepts that were a lot of fun to explore and think about.

In all cases, the science seems correct: in particular, there's no FTL, and a lot of transportation comes from beaming a scanned person around: Egan clearly believes that in a resource constrained future, sending human bodies around would be too massive a waste of resources to consider.

Most of the stories end with a satisfying conclusion, but a couple of stories felt like the author suddenly stopped when he ran out of paper (or ideas, or had written himself into a corner). Even those stories were full of interesting ideas. The first story, Lost Continent, clearly came from Egan's own philanthropic work in recent years on refugee's rights. I also enjoyed how Egan sets the stories in Australia whenever he can.

All in all, an excellent short story collection, full of stories I somehow missed over the years. Recommended.

Review: That was the Millennium That Was

That was the Millennium That Was is John Scalzi's free ebook which is a repurposed series of blog entries written around 2000. It's written in classic Scalzi style: lots of wit, very entertaining, and a lot of fun. It covers all sorts of topics, from the crusades to the invention of the time piece described in Longitude. Each piece is about 3-4 pages long, which makes this a great book to read if you're getting interrupted once in a while.

Recommended.

Hoisted from my Buzz Feed

Once again, I have a Buzz thread on leadership and solitude. I tip my hat to Cynthia for pointing me at the article linked to in the Buzz. I'll let you read the Buzz for yourself, but here are a few excerpts to pique your interest:

Things like who you promote, how you promote, whether to have an engineering ladder, how to reward engineers, etc., have a deep and lasting impact on who does well in the organization, and who gets pushed out. That lasting impact in turn impacts how decisions get made and who gets listened to. It's not surprising, for instance, that Yahoo! had a deep blind spot about search and thought it was a media company, or that Microsoft was clueless about why Vista was going to be a disaster, and that Google in turn, ignored social networks until this year. If you trace all those blind spots you eventually come to the root cause, which is the way the organization was built, what got valued, and what got discarded.

This is not necessarily a bad thing: if you look at successful organizations, they all do better when they focus, rather than spread themselves too thin. In the case of Microsoft and Yahoo, though, that focus cost them billions, and despite Microsoft spending billions it hasn't fixed its internet blind spot, and Yahoo doesn't look like it's going to regain the eminent position it once had as a portal. It is too early to tell whether Google's turnaround on social media is happening early enough or quickly enough (i.e., we don't know whether Google is Microsoft circa 1996, or whether it's Microsoft Circa 2001).

In all cases, I believe that the problem is lack of independent thinking at the top levels of the organization, and the problems had the root cause well before the disaster happened. (i.e., the problem at Yahoo happened with Terry Semel's hire, not with Semel's decision to buy Overture, and the problem at Microsoft happened with the decision to ignore the internet after killing off Netscape when Brad Silverberg lost the political battle inside Microsoft and retired, not with the installation of Ballmer as CEO)

Please join in on the conversation if you have questions or have anything to add. I'm not as familiar with Microsoft/Yahoo as I am with Google (though I did meet Brad Silverberg once), so please let me know I'm wrong.

Review: Happiness

Meng and I had this conversation a while ago:

M: Despite the wealth generated in the past 100 years, people don't seem to be any happier. The Buddhism approach covers this gap in happiness, which is important.
P: Well, if you look back over the last 400 years, the agricultural revolution which feed billions now and the invention of antibiotics has done more for humanity than 3000 years of Buddhism. I think if you want to improve the human condition, Western Science and Engineering has done more for humanity than any religion.
M: Western Science has relieved misery, but is happiness the mere absence of misery?
P: Well, to someone who's starving, that question is moot.

Since I'm generally a pretty happy person anyway, I left it at that. The pieces of happiness research I've read didn't seem terribly actionable, and weren't likely to make me any happier.

Earlier this year, when the Kindle store gave away Matthieu Ricard's Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill, I had to pick it up. It's a relatively short read, but unlike the other happiness books, this one is based on Buddhism, buttressed at times by recent scientific research. (Most of the other books I read weren't immersed in Buddhism, so the little scientific tricks to attain happiness seemed more like gimmicks than something tied to a theory)

The main thesis of this book is that the mind is like a muscle: if you train it, you can make yourself calmer, more detached from immediate emotions jerking you around. Chapter after chapter goes over the benefits: not only will you be happier, you'll be able to examine your emotions as they are occurring, and learn not to act on them. You will be more creative, and even be able to face the prospect of death with more equanimity. Topics such as Flow are covered as well.

There is no doubt to my mind that Buddhist meditation and philosophy works to help people become calmer, less angry, and so forth. The problem with this approach is that its not very evolutionarily stable: the reason why people are vengeful, for instance, is that someone who's willing to spend energy to get even will be treated with respect and others will think twice before crossing him. Nevertheless, I do agree with Ricard that the world will be a better place if more people practiced Buddhism (by the way, I don't believe this is true of the Judeo-Christian religions, for instance), and as an individual, it's definitely better to be calmer, less stressed, and able to eliminate your negative emotions at will --- keeping in mind that the purpose behind such emotions can be correct, even if the turmoil they cause in you isn't.

All in all, this book is recommended to anyone who would like a good, non-evangelical view of Buddhist philosophy and practices, or anyone who's interested in the science behind happiness.

Update: Meng reminded me that there's a YouTube video of Ricard's talk at Google:

Review: Battle Royale (The Novel)

I didn't like the movie, Battle Royale much. Unfortunately, Battle Royale: The Novel wasn't a whole lot better.

The writing is terrible, and the plot is identical. (The movie was very faithful to the book) With significantly more time, the book does have a few additional nuances, and the metaphor that the author wanted to depict stands out better. In particular, you start to see that the book is also partly railing against what its author sees as an overly competitive, dog-eat-dog school system. The ending is quite a bit better, as we see that the authorities are not complete idiots. All the minor characters are also fleshed out, so we do get some insight into the dynamics of the class put into the game.

Nevertheless, the horrible writing (or maybe horrid translation) makes this book a tedious slog, with what I consider an insufficient payoff. Not recommended.