Archive for the 'Books' Category

ThinkingRock and Managing Overload

Published
by
vanessa
on January 9, 2007
in Books and Tools
. 1 Comment

I used to think it was just me. That there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t get organized, couldn’t escape the constant feeling of being overwhelmed and, well, doomed by all the undone “stuff” lurking in the corners of my mind. It didn’t help that my mother was one of the most organized people on earth, but I apparently didn’t inherit even one of the relevant genes.

Anyway, now that I’m older and wiser I know it’s not just me. Most people suffer—to one extent or another—from “amorphous globs of stuff” cluttering up their head and not getting done. Thanks to the popularity of the blog 43Folders, I’ve discovered the joys of a book (and “system”) called Getting Things Done by David Allen. (”GTD” for short.)

Now, normally, I loathe this sort of “increase your productivity!” book. Seriously, they almost always just make me feel even more hopeless than I did before! Another system to learn, struggle with, and then fail at implementing. Shoot me now…

But this one feels different to me. I actually feel less stressed after reading only about 40 pages! My home office desk is completely clear. So’s my dining-room table and my kitchen counter-tops (where all the paper I have no idea what to do with just accumulates forever.)

I’m just a newbie and not about to get all preachy about it or anything. If you really want to find out about GTD, check out what all the folks over at 43Folders have to say for starters.

What I did really want to say was “Thank you!” to the wonderful people at ThinkingRock for their superb GTD software. It’s free, it works on any platform, and it’s saving my life.

Jesus Never Killed Anyone

Published
by
vanessa
on April 17, 2006
in Books and Religious Right
. 0 Comments

As a practicing Catholic…I believe that Christ never was or claimed to be a Nietzchean ubermensch bent on faith-based genocide. Nor do I believe for a second that he’s going to rapture the Baptist-Evangelical-Pentecostals’ hate-mongering, willfully ignorant, terminally intolerant, gun-toting, gay-bashing, race-baiting, blame-the-poor-for-poverty, I’m-saved-and-you’re-not asses up to heaven.

…

Sure, we respect their right to believe whatever they please. But we’re under no obligation to respect what they believe.

If you’re fed up with self-righteous theocratic thugs telling you who you must hate, you might enjoy this anti-Dominionist rant by the author of The Messiah of Morris Avenue.

Beautiful Minds, Strange Lives, and Large Hearts

Published
by
vanessa
on July 13, 2005
in Books and Mathematics
. 1 Comment

I’ve admired the mathematician Paul Erdös for a long time: for his legendary eccentricity, heroic output, and his groundbreaking work on random graphs. Yet I only recently got around to reading his biography, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.The most astounding aspect of the story to me was not his odd genious and single-minded—almost manic—pursuit of mathematical truth, but his unfailing generosity. A great man with an open brain and an open heart!

Other mathematical biographies I’ve enjoyed include A Beautiful Mind,the (un-Hollywood-ized) story of John Nash, and Andrew Hodges’ Alan Turing: The Enigma.Although probably a bit dated, E.T. Bell’s Men of Mathematicsis still on my to-read list (it’s a very long list!)

I owe my interest in the lives and personalities of mathematicians to one of my old math professors, a bit of a character himself, who interspersed nearly impenetrable lectures on complex analysis with stories of the quirks and foibles of mathematical greats like Riemann and Banach. By the standards of Waterloo math profs at the time, he, too, was remarkably generous.