Michael Crichton

Wow, shockingly Michael Crichton died of cancer yesterday at the age of 66.

When I was in my teens, Crichton was one of my favorite authors and over the years I have frequently enjoyed re-reading his works.

Of his many books, the medical thriller A Case of Need was the one I liked the most -- even more than Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Disclosure, The Great Train Robbery (my second favorite Crichton book), The Andromeda Strain, or any of his other best sellers.

What I always found so interesting about A Case of Need was that Crichton originally published it under a pseudonym (Jeffrey Hudson) when he was still a 26-year-old Harvard medical student (in 1968). After it won an Edgar Allen Poe Award in 1969, it gave Crichton the confidence he needed to leave medicine and his prestigious fellowship at Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA.

I think what I loved about Crichton's books was that they filled you with a sense of wonder about science -- and as a math and science geek I appreciated that.

Now I'd like more than ever to read Crichton's State of Fear (by the way, I recently learned that Crichton was a Visiting Writer at MIT in 1988).

The Mind of the Market: through chapter five

While reading Michael Shermer's The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics, I suddenly realized that the terms Shermer was teaching readers about in chapter five were mostly familiar terms from psychology and probability.

Some of them I learned at MIT, but I also read about many of these terms in a book this year or last year -- and I can't remember what book and it's driving me crazy! Maybe it was Tim Harford's The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World? Or Michael Mauboussin's More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places? Or Marshall Goldsmith's What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break?

I just don't know, so I thought I would write a bit about each chapter of The Mind of the Market -- since the whole purpose of starting this blog is to help me remember what I've read and what I've learned from reading.


So here we go...

I've already summarized the prologue, Economics for Everyone, and chapter one, The Great Leap Forward, so let's start with chapter two, Our Folk Economics. Chapter two feels like a book report on the history of free market economics. The books mentioned through chapter two include:

• On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Human Action: A Treatise on Economics by Ludwig von Mises
• The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric Beinhocker
• Socialism by Ludwig von Mises
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
• Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Pyotr Kropotkin

I'm not complaining -- I didn't know much about the free market theory and I've only taken a handful of economics courses between high school and college so I found it very educational.

Still, chapters one and two feel like a two part introduction to the book (three parts if you include the prologue) and sets up Shermer's argument that economies are "complex adaptive systems" (CAS) -- "systems in which individual particles, parts, or agents interact, process information, learn, and adapt their behavior to changing conditions" -- and that we all owe our faulty economics instincts to our species' rapid evolution.

Chapter three, Bottom-Up Capitalism, continues with the book report -- William Paley's Natural Theology, Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Frederic Bastiat's The Petition of the Candlemakers -- and again I'm thankful for the education on the history of free market theory. Shermer teaches us that Charles Darwin (Origin of Species) was arguing with William Paley (Natural Theology), who was arguing against Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations), who was arguing against the mercantilists ("the belief that nations compete for a fixed amount of wealth in a zero-sum game"). This reminded me that I'd like to read Robert Wright's Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (click here to view the table of contents and excerpts).

Anyway, the mercantilists of Smith's time believed in reducing or eliminating competition from foreign producers. Today we call that "fair trade" or the "favorable balance of trade" add the government uses a myriad of ways to intervene in the economy:

• tax favors for businesses
• tax subsidies for corporations
• regulations: to control prices, imports, exports, production, distribution, and sales
• licensing: to control wages and protect jobs
• taxes: through terms like "duties," "imposts," "excises," "tariffs," "protective tariffs," "import quotas," "export quotas," "most-favored nation agreements," "bilateral agreements," and "multilateral agreements"

Chapter three also discusses the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 -- which I hadn't thought about since taking AP US History as a high school junior -- which allows the government to indict individuals and companies on one or more of four crimes:

1. price gouging: charging more than the competition
2. cutthroat competition: charging less than the competition
3. price collusion: charging the same as the competition
4. monopoly: having no competition

The story of Charles Martin Hall's Aluminum Company of America (founded as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company and now known as Alcoa), which produced aluminum through a process far cheaper than otherwise available at the time. Hall found that aluminum was produced as byproduct of passing an electric current through a bath of cryolite and aluminum oxide. The Justice Department charged the company's directors with 140 criminal counts, including excessive prices when Alcoa in fact lowered prices dramatically.

Of course the example we all know of is the Microsoft Internet Explorer antitrust suit (bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and partnering with AOL, IBM, Intel, Compaq and others which "compelled Netscape to stop charging for Navigator).

The Wal-Mart tidbits from chapter three were also interesting:

By employing 1.3 million people (about as many as the military), and keeping retail prices low through quantity purchasing, a McKinsey & Company study estimated that Wal-Mart alone accounted for a whopping 13 percent of U.S. productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s. As the savvy social commentator and political analyst George Will noted, for every fifty retail jobs that Wal-Mart caused to be lost among its competitors, it created a hundred new jobs at Wal-Mart, making it "about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation."

I still haven't figured how I feel about Wal-Mart (especially after learning about the massive subsidies Wal-Mart receives from local and state governments) but I'd like to learn more about the economics of Wal-Mart.

Also in chapter three, Shermer quotes Nobel laureate economist Edward C. Prescott that the government's job is "to provide the opportunity for people to seek their livelihood on their own terms, in open international markets, with as little interference from government as possible" and not "to protect U.S. industry, employment, and wealth against the forces of foreign competition." Prescott's research found that "those countries that open their borders to international competition are those countries with the highest per capita income" and that open economic borders are "the key to bringing developing nations up to the standard of living enjoyed by citizens of wealthier countries" (the Treaty of Rome -- originally France, Italy, Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands -- and the subsequent increase in productivity compared with Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom).

Chapter three closes with the thought that anarcho-capitalism (the belief that political systems will eventually fall into disuse) and other free-market extremists are impractical as:

we need political states based on the rule of law, with property rights, a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system, economic stability, a reliable infrastructure, protection of civil liberties, a clean and safe environment, and various freedoms . . . a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states . . . a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by other people within the state . . . a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws . . . and an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.

The best politico-economic system to date is a liberal democracy and free market capitalism, or democratic-capitalism. In a system of democratic-capitalism, social liberalism and fiscal conservatism is a synergistic marriage that leads to the greatest prosperity, the greatest liberty, and the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

In case you couldn't tell, I liked chapter three -- I'm not sure I agree with Shermer on all his points but I still found it educational.

Chapter four, Of Pandas, Products, and People, starts out with Shermer's ode to cycling -- Shermer uses the massive changes in cycling technology during the mid-1980s through today to discuss how markets change. Also in this chapter Shermer explains many economics and evolutionary terms:

• path dependency: "where markets become dependent on the paths they are already in"
• historical lock-in: where markets "become locked into the channels in which they are operating"
• bandwagon effect: where customers "gravitate toward products that they think will most likely become readily available"
• network effect: "when producers and retailers, anticipating the bandwagon effect, produce and stock up on the products that they think will be most in demand by consumers"
• Nash equilibrium: where "two or more players reach an equilibrium where neither one has anything to gain by unilaterally changing strategies"
• Pareto efficient: allocation of resources is Pareto efficient when markets reach an equilibrium where an optimum level of win-win and win-no-lose trades (versus win-lose and no-lose-lose trades) is reached (where no further trades could be made without someone losing)
• Evolutionary Stable Strategies: a strategy that when adopted by a population of individuals consistently outcompetes alternative strategies
• exaptation: "a feature that originally evolved for one purpose is later co-opted for a different purpose"
• continuities:"a contiguous and constant connection to the past, as change occurs gradually over time"
• discontinuities:"breaks from the past as change occurs suddenly and dramatically over time"

Shermer's discussion of the QWERTY keyboard is fascinating. We've all been told that QWERTY was designed to slow down 19th century typists (who would jam the typewriters if they typed too fast). And (according the Shermer), more than 70% of English words can be produced with the letters DHIATENSOR but most of these letters are not in a "strong striking position" (home row struck by the strong first two fingers of each hand) and all vowels are removed from the strongest striking positions. Only about 100 words can be typed exclusively on th home row and the (typically weaker) left hand is required to type over 3,000 words alone (without use of the right hand). And the home row includes the alphabetic sequence DFGHJKL (minus the vowel I).

Yet the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK), which is supposedly much better, has never quite caught on. Historical research (according to Shermer) says that the inventor of QWERTY (Christopher Latham Sholes) designed his typewriter to separate keys whose type-bar letters (frequent letter pairs like T and H) were close to each other underneath the typewriter carriage. Shermer argues that "QWERTY may be suboptimal, but it is no less so than its erstwhile competitors."

Chapter five, Minding Our Money, is all about psychology and probability terms.

• cognitive dissonance: "mental tension created when a person holds two conflicting thoughts simultaneously" (Shermer uses the example of rationalizations that doomsday cults make when their prophecies don't come true)
• inattentional blindness: when attending to one task, many of us become blind to dynamic events (the gorilla suit during a basketball game is the typical example used and Shermer uses it)
• blind spot bias: when people recognize the existence and influence of biases in others but fail to see those same biases in themselves
• introspection illusion: how "people trust themselves to employ the subjective process of introspection but do not believe that others can be trusted to do the same"
• self-serving bias: "we tend to see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us"
• attribution bias: the tendency to accept credit for good behavior but to allow the situation to account for bad behaviors
• framing: that whether choices are "framed" as penalties or rewards affects one's decisions
• representative fallacy: "an event is judged probable to the extend that it represents the essential features of its parent population or generating process"
• availability fallacy: "we assign probabilities of potential outcomes based on examples that are immediately available to us, which are then generalized into conclusions upon which choices are based"
• anchoring fallacy: how once an initial value is set, we are biased toward that value (so don't be afraid to be the first to throw out a number during a negotiation)
• hindsight bias: "the tendency to reconstruct the past to fit the present knowledge"
• law of small numbers: "we tend to believe that small sample sizes are representative of the larger population"
• law of large numbers: "if the numbers are large enough, the probability is that something weird is likely to happen"
• Monty Hall problem: Whether you should change your choice on the classic television game show Let's Make a Deal (three doors with a brand new car behind one door and goats behind the other two doors) after Monty Hall opens one of the doors you did not choose and unveils a goat -- you should but most people would not
• mental accounting: where we put monies into different categories depending on the frame or context
• Wason Selection Test: thought experiment "designed to test symbolic reasoning" (four cards, each with a letter of the alphabet on one side and a number on the other side, with two cards showing numbers and two showing letters such as M 4 E 7; test the rule "if there is a vowel on one side, there must be an even number on the other side" by turning over just two cards -- the answer is E and 7 but most people choose E and 4)
• endowment effect: bias toward the status quo (what you already have and must give up in order to change) versus what you might have once you choose
• sunk-cost fallacy: how "we hang on to losing stocks, unprofitable investments, failing businesses, and unsuccessful relationships" based on our past costs and not wanting to sacrifice our sunk costs
• confirmation bias: "where we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence)"
• loss aversion effect: "shows that people tend to fear losses about twice as much as they desire gains"

Whew, that took longer than I expected . . .

I will write more about the other chapters later . . .

Happy Halloween!

The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces by Frank Wilczek

I'd like to read Frank Wilczek's The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces.

If it sounds familiar and you don't know why, it's probably because you've heard of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Fantastic novel (set in Prague), but totally different.

I didn't realize that Wilczek chose this name partly because his favorite novel is The Unbearable Lightness of Being until I took a look at his website just now.

Wilczek, a physics professor at MIT and a Nobel Laureate, also wrote with his wife Betsy Devine Longing for the Harmonies (which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year) and Fantastic Realities: 49 Mind Journeys And a Trip to Stockholm.

Here's what the publisher has to say about this book:

Physicists’ understanding of the essential nature of reality changed radically over the past quarter century. MIT's Wilczek has played a lead role in establishing the new paradigms. Transcending the clash and mismatch of older ideas about what matter is, and what space is, Wilczek presents here some brilliant and clear syntheses. Space is a dynamic material, the engine of reality; matter is a subtle pattern of disturbance in that material.

Extraordinarily readable and authoritative, The Lightness of Being explores the implications of the newest findings in physics for basic questions about space, mass, energy, and the longed-for possibility of a fully unified theory of Nature. Along the way, Wilczek presents new perspectives on many strange aspects of our fantastic universe. Pointing toward new directions where the great discoveries in fundamental physics are likely to come, he envisions a new Golden Age in physics.

Sounds pretty nerdy huh? It's been some time since I've read a serious science book...

Some of Wilczek theories will be among the first to be tested at the controversial Large Hadron Collider, a $9 billion machine outside of Geneva at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Click here to read an excerpt, click here to view the table of contents, or here to read more about this book from the author's website dedicated to The Lightness of Being.

Also, Wilcek will be speaking about his book on Tuesday, October 28,2008 at 6:45 PM with the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program at the Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC. Tickets cost $20 for the general public, $13 for seniors, and $15 for members.

Click here to register.

Nobel Prize Winners 2008

I always like reading about each year's Nobel Laureates.

The Nobel Prize Winners announced last week and today are:

Physiology or Medicine
Harald zur Hausen, for his discovery of "human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and
Luc Montagnier, for their discovery of the "human immunodeficiency virus" (click here to watch a PBS Frontline video about it)

Physics
Yoichiro Nambu, "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"
Makoto Kobayashi and
Toshihide Maskawa, "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature"

Chemistry - "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" (isolated from jellyfish)
Osamu Shimomura
Martin Chalfie
Roger Y. Tsien

Literature
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, French writer of more than 40 books

Peace
Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland who is knowsn for his peace efforts and cautious diplomacy (particularly in Africa)

Economic Sciences
Paul Krugman (MIT PhD ’77), "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity"

I'll have to see if I can get a copy of one of Le Clézio's books and Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics (click here to read an excerpt and click here to view the table of contents) or any of his other books at my local library.

Liquid Assets

As I’ve mentioned before, water conservation and water rights have always interested me since it's an important issue when you grow up on an island.

And I've grown more concerned about the world’s water supply since 2003 when I read Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke.

So it's been interesting to observe the growing public concern about water.

The current online debate on The Economist's website focuses on water; Proposition: "Water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value."

The October 23, 2008 MIT Enterprise Forum Global Broadcast is titled "From Soft Drinks to Real Estate: How a Looming Water Crisis Affects Our World and How to Optimize the Business Opportunity" and will discuss:

• How is the Water Crisis impacting businesses broadly?
• What is the impact on key industries such as real-estate development and agri-business?
• How does the cost of water impact us as residents and fellow members in a business community?
• How does the cost of water impact the cost of goods from hamburgers to t-shirts?
• How are new technologies being used to mitigate the crisis?
• Where do business opportunities lie to optimize a looming crisis as profitable prevention practices?

And on Sunday, I watched a ninety-minute documentary on my local PBS station, Liquid Assets: The Story of Our Water Infrastructure.

Liquid Assets is a public media and outreach initiative produced by Penn State Public Broadcasting to inform the nation about the critical role our water infrastructure plays in protecting health and promoting economic prosperity and explores the history, engineering, political, and economic challenges of our water infrastructure, and engages communities in local discussions about public water and wastewater issues.

I highly recommend watching this documentary, whether you are a water expert or just an everyday person whose only recently been interested in water conservation and water rights.

Here are some discussion questions suggested by the producers:

Local Issues

• What issues in the documentary are similar to the issues in your community?
• What are the public health or safety issues that can affect your community as a result of problems with the water infrastructure?
• Has your local economy been affected by shortfalls in your water infrastructure?
• How will increases in the rate structure be received by consumers?

Infrastructure Maintenance and Repair

• Who is responsible for sustaining your community’s water resources? What questions would you like to ask them?
• What is your local watershed?
• What steps are being taken to protect it?
• What other communities share this watershed?
• Have the local water systems been inspected?
• When will the water systems in your community need to be replaced?
• Does your community have a plan to rehabilitate and repair its water infrastructure?
• How will your community pay for infrastructure improvements?
• How will your community pay for infrastructure improvements? Federal, state, local governments?
• Private water companies? Increases in rates? Local tax allocations? Other options?

Community Problem Solving

• What do you believe is the most pressing water issue in your community?
• What can be done on the local level to solve the community challenges?
• What individuals and groups need to come together to achieve results?
• What is the first step in bringing these groups together?
• How can communities in the same watershed share their ideas?

Click here to view the trailer for Quicktime or here to view it for Windows Media Player.

And on Monday, I watched the Jane Seymour narrated documentary The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?; click here to watch a promotional Quicktime video or click here to see when it will air on your local PBS station. You can also view a "call to action" video here.

Everywhere you turn it seems more and more people are sounding the alarm about water.

I've got to make time to read Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (click here to read my posts related to this book), Ken Midkiff’s Not a Drop to Drink: America’s Water Crisis (and What You Can Do) (click here to read a post about this book), and Paul Simon’s Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It.

And any other books you might recommend?

Age 18 - 25: Not quite a teen, not fully an adult

As we all know, the teenage years can be a time of huge emotional upheaval. But research gathered, analyzed and published this summer by the MIT Young Adult Development Project suggests that the years from 18 to 25 should be regarded as a specific developmental period with its own characteristics, milestones and limitations--a time of stunning accomplishment, wonderful energy, and creativity as well as chilling risk as young adults are propelled into full maturity.

A. Rae Simpson, the program director of parenting education and research at MIT's Center for Work, Family and Personal Life, and the creator of the Young Adult Development Project is an authority on parenting and adolescent issues.

She examined more than 500 articles and other sources about the young adult years, with a special focus on about 30 researchers and bases her conclusions in part on research that indicates that some important developments in the prefrontal cortex of the brain don't occur until the early 20s. But she also considers cultural factors: Today's American young adults are attending school longer, delaying marriage and often living at home due to economic pressure. "The kind of milestones that we have associated with adulthood are happening later in the 20s," she says.

Simpson's work has implications for colleges and universities hoping to ease student stress and depression as well as for parents dealing with adult children and employers and human service providers working with young adults. Young adults also may gain greater understanding into their own psyche.

So good news, the quarterlife-crisis that we were all afraid we were making up is real!

Click here to download a print-friendly PDF summary of the report; or click here to download a PDF version of a set of PowerPoint slides summarizing the web material.

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Last weekend I read Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe, a New Age book based on the work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram.

While it was certainly interesting to read, this book and the science behind it was unconvincing. It seemed to me that the book was more interested in describing paranormal phenomenon and stating that the only explanation of such events is that we live in a holographic universe.

I'm open to the idea that paranormal phenomenon (out of body experiences, near death experiences, psychokinesis, past life memories, etc) may exist, but Talbot's writing did not make it clear how such phenomenon proves the holographic universe idea.

Also, Talbot explained basic quantum physics as I learned it in high school and at MIT but I did not think his use of these principles provided adequate support for his argument.

I'll have to research some of the scientists and their research to better assess the truth of this book.

Click here to read an article by the author that summarizes many of the ideas in this book.

Imagining MIT by William J. Mitchell

I just received Imagining MIT: Designing a Campus for the Twenty-First Century by William J. Mitchell as a gift.

Having been at MIT for many of the construction projects mentioned in the book -- Kevin Roche's Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center, Steven Holl's Simmons Hall, Frank Gehry's Stata Center, Charles Correa's Brain and Cognitive Science Complex, and Fumihiko Maki's still-unrealized project for the Media Laboratory -- I'm excited to read about the process behind the buildings.

Click here to view the table of contents or click here to read a sample chapter or click here to watch a lecture by the author on the book!

The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda

Just read about The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda (published 2006) on the MIT Press website, where you can buy the book and a simplicity t-shirt for just $25.00!

Maeda is a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer and this book explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more -- makes me think of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben.

I've long been a proponent of simplicity so I'm curious to learn more about this book.

From viewing the author's website, it seems like you can simply view the website instead of purchasing and reading the book. So I'm not sure if I'll even borrow it from the library or just learn what I can online.

Click here to view the table of contents or here to view a summary of the ten laws.

Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston - Student Loans

I've been reading Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) by David Cay Johnston (click here to read my other entry on this book) and just got through Chapter 14, Indentured Scholars

.Reading this chapter made me feel very thankful that I do not have student loans. Johnston tells readers that about two-thirds of college students who graduate are in debt, and many owe more than their parents make in one or even several years!

Did you know that students borrow about $85 billion each year with repayment guaranteed by the federal government? Even if you go bankrupt, federal law prohibits clearing student loans!

In 2003, I was fortunate to hear Noam Chomsky give a talk at MIT. I don't recall the topic of his speech, but I clearly remember his argument that the purpose of student loans is to make young adults functional members of society. It does this by saddling students with debt that requires them to earn a decent salary, thus preventing them from protesting or other activities that students in the 1960s and 1970s did instead of working.

While Johnston doesn't explicitly state this conspiracy theory as Chomsky did back in 2003, he is equally harsh in his criticisms of the student loan industry (which has come under fire recently for kickbacks paid to universities).

Personally, I think the whole college / university system has gone mad. In recent years, tuition has skyrocketed at most colleges and admission rates have plummeted. Parents are grooming their kids at ever younger ages to get them into the "right" college.

It all seems crazy to me.

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine by Anne Harrington

I've been reading The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine by Anne Harrington and have found it fascinating!

I first heard about this book in Jerome Groopman's New York Times article "Faith and Healing" published January 2008.

Harrington, a professor at Harvard, was the editor for The Dalai Lama at MIT which I would also like to read. I saw the Dalai Lama in 2004 when he visited MIT for a Mind & Life Institute Conference and found him to be intelligent, compassionate, and humorous.

Western science has not been able to fully explain or debunk Eastern medicine and I enjoy reading about studies and experiments that provide definite proof in either direction.

Looking forward to reading more of this book!

NYTimes.com Book Review - Kluge by Gary Marcus

Just read this week’s NYTimes.com Book Update and found one more book that I’d like to read:
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus (NYTimes Book Review "Patch Job" by Annie Murphy Paul).

I'm admittedly interested in reading this book largely because Marcus is a fellow MIT alumnus. Marcus, professor of psychology at New York University and director of NYU's Infant Language Learning Center, borrows the engineer's term kluge, used to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem, to describe the human mind.

And the other interesting article from the April 25, 2008 NYTimes.com Book Update was an essay by Rachel Donadio titled "You’re an Author? Me Too!." This essay discusses how despite the "well established [fact] that Americans are reading fewer books than they used to" (check out the June 2004 article "Fewer Noses Stuck in Books In America, Survey Finds" by Bruce Weber), more and more people are becoming authors by writing blogs and self-publishing. I think I am unlikely to purchase a self-published book by an author whose books I haven't read.

I don't have aspirations to become a published author, though I am fascinated by this self-publishing phenomenon. I've only purchased one self-published books, and that is Strategy and the Fat Smoker: doing what’s obvious but not easy by David H Maister. And that was only because I had read two of his other books (The Trusted Advisor and Managing The Professional Service Firm) and found them both educational and straightforward.

Still, I am skeptical about the survey data that says that Americans don't read anymore (I tend to agree with this WSJ.com blog that questions the methods used in the famous 2004 National Endowment for the Arts survey). Statistics and studies can be manipulated so easily to confirm anticipated results.

I think the 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll that showed that only 25% of Americans had not read a book in the past year may be more accurate, though who knows?

Junot Díaz wins Pulitzer for 'Oscar Wao'

Yay for MIT (my alma mater)!

MIT Professor Junot Díaz won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction his first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I think it started out as a fiction piece for the New Yorker and became his debut novel; the book received great reviews in the NYTimes Book Review.

I haven't read it yet, but will be sure to add it to my very long list of books to read.

Click here to read the full article from the MIT News Office.

Or click here to read the release form the Pulitzer Prizes.