The $500 Diet: Weight Loss for People Who Are Committed to Change by Ian Ayres
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Such a disappointment!

I was referred to this book from the list of other personal development-oriented books and expected it to be at least OK, if not great, but it was an utter disappointment.

Most of the time when I read personal development book nowadays I’m a little bit bored, since most of the time ideas aren’t new and my interest is mostly fueled by either author’s talent to tell good stories or author’s personal and (hopefully) original angle on the familiar problem. And you know, that’s OK with me. Personal development is an area where applying just a handful of common sense rules will get you 90% of the goal. I actually recently become interested in the art of finding such short, but deep formulas that cover pretty much the entire problem. Good examples are:
- “Eat food, not too much, mostly greens” which covers proper food consumption and dieting
- “One thing at the time, most important thing first, start now” which pretty much covers task management
etc etc

So, from that point of view this book won’t be awful, since its main idea is to use serious financial penalty as a motivational tool for behavior change, specifically for the weight loss. Meh, a little bit boring and probably shallow to fill even a small book, but still nothing really wrong about it.

There are two problems however:

First, this is like an extended ad for author’s web app (StickK) that allows you to put money where your mouth is and risk losing them if you don’t reach your goal. I’m not a huge fan of such method of motivation, but it will work for some people and while I didn’t use the service, my friend (and current employer) Buster Benson is playing with similar approach in his HealthMonth service, so I expected that author will mention his app here and there. But the book is actually choke full filled with it. You can’t read a single page (or at least it feels like that) without noticing the StickK. It just so overboard that it drives me nuts.

Second and much bigger problem is that while author is mostly concentrating on the topic of money bets as a motivator for the behavior change, he always uses only one example – losing weight. Yes, that’s almost everyone’s New Year resolution #1 and most of the time author doesn’t attempt to suggest what is the right way, but he implies that it’s just eating less calories and exercising more. Which on its own is a “kind of” right advice. “Kind of” because while it’s important to eat less calories and exercise more, you also need to eat right food. And not eating right food is that secret enemy that makes majority of dieters to regain their weight and that’s what author is trying to fight with a $500 money bets. Hilarious example of that is his quote of some poor dieter who tweets everything he eats and it reads like “waffles with a maple syrup, cheerios, etc”. No wonder that even some iron-willed people regain their weight if they continue to eat that crap and sending their bodies daily on the insulin roller-coaster.
How about changing what you’re eating instead of using huge piles of money to force yourself into the artificial extended hunger which inevitably will defeat you and you regain that weight back? Don’t expect answer to that question in this book.

So, while the book was only $2 or $3 on Amazon, I actually regret paying my money for it. There are other much-much better books both on motivation and dieting. Don’t waste your time.

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EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches by Dave Ramsey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I like Dave’s straightforward approach to… pretty much everything in life. Finances, business, employees, parenting… The list goes on and on. I was listening to his podcast almost daily for 2 years and I still enjoy listening to it occasionally. He really helped me to solidify certain rules for myself and, yes, also get out of debt. My finances were not horrible, but nothing to be proud of either and now I can see a drastic change which I attribute first and foremost to his principles.
Now, I may disagree with certain things – like putting his Religion as a cornerstone, but I can’t (and shouldn’t) judge. I may have some other principles, but it doesn’t change the outcome. So, even if you’re atheist or you hate George W Bush (apparently Dave loves him) or you don’t think porn is a problem – just get over it, as long as you don’t work with Dave his principles won’t affect you, just benefit from the words of the guy, who in my opinion impersonates common sense.

TL;DR

Great book for any entrepreneur. Pure common sense instead of theories out of the thin air.

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Version Control By Example by Eric Sink
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a great book (probably the best one) for someone who is just learning how to use version control systems. It’s also a great book for experienced professionals who use VCS daily, but at the same time don’t feel that they have a good foundation and just use those commands without good understanding what they are exactly doing.

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The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations by Paul Carr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s not very deep book and yet it’s fascinating enough to swallow in one evening. A little bit of “4-hour work week” (or maybe “Up in the Air”), a little bit of Tucker Max’s books.

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Bossypants by Tina Fey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well, it’s a hard review to write. I have a platonic crash on Tina Fey and I’m totally biased, however even with all that I just can’t give it more than 3 stars. Yes, sometimes it’s entertaining (but not hilarious) and yes, it’s interesting to look into the insides of SNL and 30 Rocks production, even though this is probably the smallest part of the book. That’s probably my biggest disappointment in the entire book. I really wish to have more of this material.

The part I really like is her summary on the main rules of improv – in fact, I think the rule of "yes, and" is very applicable to our lives (remember "Yes Man" movie?!). That’s something that really stuck with me.

Rest is kind of meh… After reading Bossypants and The Bedwetter this year I’m probably done with that kind of books for a while. They aren’t bad, but there are more entertaining books and there are more useful books.

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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great book.
First, I thought that this is a book about barefoot running. And I was right, but there’s something more. Then I thought that this is a book about mysterious Indians and I was right again, but there was more. Than I thought that this is a book about running. Then book about running shoes. Then about evolution (it almost felt like Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Pollan at some point). Then about freedom, spirit and personal development.
In fact, all of those statements are true. It’s a very deep book that will affect you on many levels.

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Wow! That’s pretty impressive new phone.

• It’s an Android 2.1, which means that you’ll get tons of apps and though iPhone apps in average are still better , Android apps are getting better and better each day
• 8MP Camera + video – this is something to kill for. I use Nexus One 5Mp camera as my primary one these days, but this little baby should be so much better
• Second 1.3 front-facing camera – I don’t care too much about video calls, but it maybe handy for Skype
• 1 GHz SnapDragon processor – It’s the same as in Nexus One and it’s really fast
• Acts like Wi-Fi hotspot for up to 8 devices – This is HUGE! Right now, if you have multiple devices, for example, laptop, phone and netbook or iPad and you want them all to be connected you have to either pay for each one separately which is super-expensive or buy Verizon’s MiFi which is cool, but they have a pathetic 5Gb cap or buy a Palm, which is apparently not a good idea right now. With a phone like this – you can make it your central WiFi hub and share Internet to your other devices through WiFi. And it looks like Sprint doesn’t have obvious caps on their data plan. This thing along maybe a huge motivator to get this phone. Paying something like $70 a month for WiFi anywhere and for all of your devices – sounds pretty attractive to me



• Sprint’s 4G network – I didn’t use their network, but they claim that it maybe up to 10x times faster than 3G. And probably it will be less clogged on events like GDC
• Last, but not least 4.3″ display – that should be very good for reading books or watching movies

Day 48 (Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010)

Missed the aikido class, because of some urgent stuff at work. Actually regret it. It wasn’t that urgent, but I was kind of sucked in and was quite frustrated by some conversations, so I decided not to bother. I really need to be able to fight such surges of apathy. Coincidentally, one of the best way to fight an apathy is actually doing physical exercises and, specifically, martial arts… Well, you know – hindsight is always 20/20.

Watched the latest episode of “House M.D.”, which was really awesome. Denis, you will love it. Such a wonderful picture of a day of a typical manager. And getting outside of the box and making Cuddy main character at least for one episode was definitely refreshing.

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Monday (Day 46) was quite dull. It’s a holiday – so I stayed home, but most of the time was just doing chores. Really, nothing interesting to write about.

 

Tuesday (Day 47) though was quite a busy one. Went to Seattle earlier than usual since I had a meeting at client’s office about our new product with them. I can’t really say anything, but it’s quite exciting one and I love to work with those folks. On the way back to office, get a cup of brew from my new favorite coffee shop – Seattle Coffee Works. Those guys seems to be the only coffee shop in entire Downtown Seattle who roast their own coffee right there in the shop and I should say that it’s hard to not notice the difference. Their coffee just rocks! And funny thing – they just released an Obama blend with some beans from Kenya – good sense of humour, dudes!

In the afternoon, had an appointment with a doctor to get my medical examination for greencard papers and, of course, as most of immigrants, who actually vaccinated against tuberculosis – we all have a positive Mantoux tests, so instead of giving us papers, they sent us to hospital to do chest X-Ray. Of course, we all are healthy, but they have to follow the rules, which means 3-4 more days to finish with this stupid medical examination. But hopefully I should be able to submit next week.

We actually spent quite a bit of time in the evening sorting through all these papers that we already prepared. It’s quite a stack.

And late at night, I watched “Up In The Air” which was highly recommended by my Minsk colleagues. It’s a very good movie indeed – romantic comedy on the surface and nice personal lifestyle lecture at the core. It’s wit and funny and highly recommended.