Sam Russell

Good science except for the race baiting

Revisado: 10-27-20

There have been many times in my career where I felt the way we did things was wrong, but didn't have the data to prove it. This book goes through the promises from devops and quantifies them, sometimes in surprising ways. A great analysis of what to do to become an effective IT company (hint: young startup vs old bank makes 0 difference).

The one let-down was their coverage of "diversity". Forsgren is very light-handed and careful with her recommendations throughout the book, but at the end somehow dives headfirst into a non-sensical command to "hire more women and minorities and everything will get better". With her other points she shows a clear causal link, whereas here the waters are murky, and yet she's somehow at her most fervent despite this.

Don't discard the book over this, some of the greats of our time (such as Brene Brown, a favourite of mine) have been sucked into the promise of "diversity" fixing everything, even if it means attending crowded protests in the middle of a pandemic. This is a great book, just don't be surprised when it goes south in the final chapter.

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Cute idea, weak execution

Revisado: 11-28-19

I've just watched the latest Christopher Robin movie and it brought back some great memories of reading Winnie the Pooh as a kid. This book is somewhat nostalgic for me, and it does a good job of casting Pooh as an eastern philosopher, but is ultimately a bit poorly held together, and includes a couple of strange detours into Greenpeace and conspiracy theories that really detract from the point of the book.

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A witty and thoughtful take on stoicism

Revisado: 04-07-19

This is a breath of fresh air in a genre cluttered with empty platitudes and wishful thinking. One would expect no less from the renowned debunker of charlatans, but even Derren manages to leave the listener pleasantly surprised.

Derren wades slowly but surely into the murky waters of life's biggest questions. Why are we here? What should we do with our short time on earth? What would we like to do with our lives?

This book will make you think hard and probably leave you with more questions than answers, but it will definitely point you in the right direction and leave you better than it found you.

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No science, no discipline

Revisado: 06-25-18

I've read a lot of self help books. The advice varies in effectiveness, but this book has to be the worst. The author simply lists a bunch of empty platitudes, with no guidance on how to actually go about them. To make matters worse, the advice eventually turns from useless adages to pure bad advice.

Here's a sample of some of the sage wisdom you can expect from this book:

- stop being anxious
- if you are a smoker, stop smoking, and start thinking about why you are unhappy
- just work harder and stop enjoying life, and that will make you more productive

By the title, I was expecting to hear strategies on how to improve myself in an incremental fashion. This book has nothing of the sort.

If you're looking for a good listen on how to improve your life, may I recommend some of the following:

- 12 rules for life by Jordan Peterson
- the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

If you don't need an audiobook and wouldn't mind a physical book, I can also highly recommend The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte - fantastic and practical advice on how to build resilience

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