Right time for some brain dumping, stand back..  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Having the vacation gave me time to read and think (always dangerous). So here's some stuff that emerges :

 Books, I thought Tipping Point was an excellent read I loved the points Malcolm was making and the way he broke down the cascading changes described in the book. It is very thought provoking and appears to be written from the angle of someone who would imagine being able to tinker with the Tipping Point principles using his 'Mavens', 'Salesmen' and 'Connectors'. Thus in many ways it is an inspiring book, thus please don't let my comments take away too much from it, but my critisisms are :

 It can be a bit verbose and fluffy at times, in many ways the book could be reduced (boiled down) significantly, but thats not Malcolms style, it's is also what helps makes his books so popular.

 The entire book is pretty much devoid of any real backup in terms of proofs, maths, or concrete theorums. I don't think this is because they don't exist, rather Malcolm sews different example stories together to illustrate his key theories (By this I mean his intepretations).

 Some of the stories are not altogether convincing and I have read elsewhere different views on why the things occurred, this means Malcolms asssumptions could be leading one up the garden path a little. It may just be that others have had greater time to reflect on events than Malcolm and his researchers feature I am not sure. This is particularly true of the New York crime figures story.

 I also managed to read Critical Mass by Philip Ball. This book unlike TP above is quite comprehensive some 644 pages. I would whole heartidly however recommend you read it, I found it quite fascinating. A warning - is that it starts quite slow (A bit like walking through treacle), by providing a comprehensive historical backdrop for the real goodies in the book. The real goodies are kind of middle to the end of the book in my opinion. the reason is because Philip chooses a style of 'stack em up' before knocking them over with the new and better stuff! This way he explores the cul de sacs and wrong turns in history and makes good cases for why they were such. What the book talks about is applying modern physics math (it's actually quite simple and readable math by the way, not lots of equations, more logic and stats) to chiefly economics and social behaviour. He also covers a little network theory and things like wars, utopias and emergence but in all cases he shows underneath the same principles found in physics and draws excellent comparisons between them and physical examples. Much of it is focused around critical points, phase transitions, metastable and non-equilibrium states etc.. If that doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry read the book and it will.

 This is also one of those books that has changed something inside my head, you know flicked a few switches. Subsequent to reading the book I have noticed a whole bunch of things happening that where previously below my radar. As what I have consumed from the book slowly matures in my mind, I am seeing it's underpinnings in many different areas I once would have passed over without blinking.

 Here are my small critisisms :

 Its a real slow starter, that makes it really difficult to get into and will innevitably loose many readers.

 In someways there is too much historical background and getting to the crunch earlier could have meant putting more of the good stuff in those 644 pages!

 It is the kind of book that would be fascinating to see in multimedia with colour and animations etc.. this isn't really a critsism more a wish

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Good wine found during my vacation

 Although we tasted and picked up many good wines including the excellent sparkling Saumurs (including sparkling reds!) I already new of these. I however, had never really been a Rosé drinker, but I discovered Cabernet de Saumur (2004). This wine is just so perfectly drinkable on a sunny afternoon, you can just drink it and drink it, it is so clean and smooth it sets a new sets a new definition of quaffable IMHO, serve chilled 10-12 ºC fantastic and really good value!!.

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