Sandberg writes that it shouldn’t be read cover-to-cover, but it’s still an exhausting reference covering the history of guitars (a little too lengthy, IMO), guitar construction, materials, strings and manufacturers. He’s clearly a fan of Martin.

There is plenty of advice and common sense. For example, he’s correct in noting that the thesaurus of marketing adjectives is irrelevant in evaluating a guitar’s sound, feel or aesthetics. Thus, one doesn’t buy a guitar because its top is made of hand-carved petrified Brazilian balsa or Koa from Don Ho’s ukelele. Rather, one actually tries several out, live. (And if you don’t play, bring a friend who does.)

Towards the end, he offers sample [circa 2000] price ranges, what to expect, and which manufacturers one should look at as the baseline. Even eight years later, these still seem to hold true. (Well, within $50)

I had deja vu as I skimmed through the three volumes in this compendium. The first “book” is a very basic introduction – stuff I remembered from the last time I took lessons (fourth grade). Book 2 also had a lot of familiar song snippets like “Arkansas Traveler.” I was about to move onto another resource when I found the finger-picking version of House of the Rising Sun. Despite my stumbling on the F-chord, it was pretty fun. The third part had some meatier material, but its complexity doesn’t come across on paper. Fortunately, my library’s copy had CD 3 still with the book.

It was also useful enough that I’m going to order this one off Amazon.

As apillai notes, this is a great book for the beginning baker, replete with pictures and enough chemistry and precision to appeal to the engineer. I’m currently making another batch of the bagels

I loved this book ! My favorite question was the one about spaghetti, e.g., if you hold a strand at both ends and bend it until it breaks, why will it (nearly) always break into three or more pieces.

This compendium of Simpsons Comics has wonderful artwork and spoofs of various stories, but what makes it worth it is the excellent one on Lord of the Rings.

Lisa:The Dwarf is poking me with his axe.

Dwarf:I am not!

Marge:Don’t make me come back there! I’ll turn this fellowship around, and we’ll all go home, and evil will rule forever. Is that what you want?

The book is well-organized. One criticism I have is that, for an “Introduction,” its heavy use of mathematical notation (versus prose) can be daunting, especially if one hasn’t been immersed in that sort of thing for a while. Had the instructor not been so awesome, supplementing the material with demos, real-world examples, and other materials (like Andrew Moore’s Support Vector Machine slides), I might have been less motivated to power through.

Going forward, the book will be a good reference.

There is certainly value in concepts of defining use cases with enough specificity and brevity. Unfortunately, this is one of those books where the authors are so enamored with their cleverness, the treatment suffers. For example, they offer a section on “graphical icons to highlight goal levels.” To quote from the book:

”Very summary (very white) use cases get a cloud, [cloud icon]. Use this on that rarest of occasions when you see that the steps in the use case are themselves white goals.”

and:

”Some subfunctions (black) should never be written. Use a clam, [clam icon], to mark a use case that needs to be merged with its calling use case.”

They seem to assume familiarity with UML. Overall, the presentation was too dry for me.

Cowen’s writing is conversational, as if he was making observations of life. (If my macroeconomics classes had been this way!) Dubner’s “Freakonomics” is more audacious (and recommended) while Landsburg’s “More Sex is Safer Sex” is interesting only as a thought experiment; see my review on it.

A recurring theme in the book is how we send signals. For example, when visiting a new restaurant, he suggests asking the waiter the simple question, “what is best?” If there is any hesitation, then maybe it’s not the restaurant for you.

In an ethnic restaurant, where there may be a cultural barrier to using this technique, he suggests some research may greatly improve your experience by _signal_ling you are an atypical, discriminating, serious customer. For example, in a Sichuan restaurant, he might request they “bring me the food of Chengdu.” Chicken kidneys with XO sauce will certainly be better prepared than the Kung Pao. As Michael Palin has said before, the local specialty is always the best choice.

More generally, when in a fancy (expen$ive) restaurant, order the ugly and unknown. The restaurant includes pedestrian foods (e.g. chicken fingers) for the diner unwilling to venture outside of their comfort zone. The menu is well thought out. If an unusual item is on the menu, it’s there for a reason, perhaps it’s a specialty.

Other sections are well worth reading. For example, he notes that long-term relationships always have a healthy dose of selective forgetfulness (“mental aggradation”); otherwise, people will dwell on the slightest slights.

A more economical example, pertinent for the holidays, is the overestimation of the utility of a “gym membership.” He cites a survey of 7,752 gym member spread among three health clubs and three years. Under one contract, a customer paying $70/month might attend once a week, or about $17 a visit. A ten-visit pass (at $10/visit) would be more economical, except because people are unwilling to confront their illusion about how much they will actually attend, they opt for the more expensive choice. Similarly, once they stop going, the average person will spend another 2 1/2 month before formally canceling membership.

After watching the show since its inception, I was looking forward to the book. My expectations were set far too high.

It is, as the other reviewer said, a 230-page episode of the Colbert Report. Whereas Colbert’s program has fantastic nuance and spontaneity, the same shtick doesn’t work as well in book form (which itself is a self-referential irony), even with the abundant snarky side notes. (These are much like The W0rd ).

Overall, I was disappointed.

Amanda is right, this is an intoxicating series. The eight profiles are all well done, though my favorites were the two artists whom I initially knew the least about, David and Bernini. Having the context of the trouble and strife surrounding the creation of their works make the art even more captivating.