Small Is Beautiful

I'm about 1/2 way through E.F. Schumacher's wonderful book Small Is Beautiful. I'm really, really, really enjoying it. It's not so much that he's a genius or an amazing writer as much as that he is a genuine human, and he writes with real warmth, insight and relevance.

The book is about macroeconomics, and it's downright engaging. He talks about things like courage, romance, faith and hope... but not in an irritating, wishy-washy, touchy-feely way. In a regular human way. Without using the word "distributist," he lays out a very strong case for distributism.

And, imagine my satisfaction when I read the following line:

"Any third rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but it takes a certain flair of real insight to make things simple again."

Hmmm... where have I read that concept before? In my own Simplicity Cycle book, perhaps?

BJ's Dream

An excerpt from The Boomer Sisters In The City, the third volume in the Boomer Sisters series. It's almost ready to be sent to the illustrator... and the finished book should be ready by Christmas (if not sooner).

In this scene, the older sister (BJ) has a dream. Jekka is her younger sister. The imagery probably makes more sense if you've read the first 1/2 of the book, but I think you'll get the general sense...

That night, BJ dreamed she was riding a silver unicorn through the streets of New York City. Jekka was with her, dressed like Tonto and singing Silver Bells over and over again. They came around a corner and found a tall, skinny, bald man in a gray suit. He had huge paint brushes instead of hands, and they were dripping with white paint. He moved his arms up and down, laying wide strips of white paint on every building he could reach. The paint made the buildings disappear, and BJ somehow knew that if he painted the whole city, Jekka wouldn’t be able to sing.

A tiny man in a brown robe appeared. He was carrying a bell, and he winked at BJ, then began running towards the paint brush-handed man, waving his bell over his head and ringing it loudly. The little man rang his bell louder and louder, but BJ’s alarm clock woke her up before she found out what he was going to do.

Thoughts on "The Simplicity Cycle "

All my books are basically experiments. They are attempts to understand something, to make something, and to communicate at least some of that something to the world outside my own head. I write them for my own amazement and my own amusement, and am always thrilled to hear that other people find them worthwhile.

Chet Richards' recent review of The Simplicity Cycle got me thinking about that book in particular. His review really captured what the book was about and what I was trying to do with it. A positive review is nice to have, but a positive review that praises the book for all the right reasons - that's priceless.

The Simplicity Cycle, as Dr. Richards pointed out, is not a cookbook. I wasn't trying to instruct and inform so much as to guide and stimulate. The "examples" are really provocations intended to plant seeds of ideas which can flourish if given time and thought. I was aiming to remind more than to instruct, and, in the original sense of the word educate, to draw-out ideas and concepts from within people's minds. I was aiming to lead people forward, to the next step of design wisdom.

The book is theory, not practice, but it's practical theory. It is, in a sense, metaphysical, or at the very least philosophical. It is about subjective judgments, opinions, and shoulds, rather than objective analyses of mechanical optimization.

And it was a ton of fun to write!

Money

I was discussing future plans with a friend the other day, and she asked if I was going to get an engineering job with a big company eventually and "make a lot of money."

I answered that I'm really not very interested in working for a large company, nor in making a lot of money...

See, I don't want to be rich. I just want to be happy, and I haven't seen much evidence that wealth beyond a certain point (which I passed years ago) has anything to do with happiness or contentment. Plus, I'm already happy (how many rich people can say that?). And if I was ever to become rich, I wonder what that would do to my kids. Not that I'm afraid they'd turn into Paris Hilton or anything, but it's not clear to me that big bucks would be good for them.

As someone wise once said, "I don't want everything I want."

Also, as far as I'm concerned, I'm already rich - I've got everything I need, most of what I want, and plenty to share with those who have less.

Here's a Wall Street Journal article which discusses the (non) link between wealth and happiness.

On movies...

The earlier post about Click got me thinking about movies some more, and I realized something: Generally speaking, I don't take movies seriously enough to dislike them.

I think this is a specific application of my dad's equation S=R/E (satisfaction equals reality over expectations). When you take something seriously, your expectations tend to rise, and if the reality of the experience isn't sufficently high, satisfaction drops. But if you don't take the film too seriously, you're more apt to enjoy it...

I think it's also a specific application of my preference for imperfectionism.

Smartest Man in the World

Check out Saul Colt's blog - he's "the smartest man in the world," and has some very cool stuff to say about a lot of different things...

And I love one of the comments Andy Nulman made on one of Saul's posts about indie publishing being the new indie rock... Suddenly, I feel 100 times cooler!

Updates

Just a few thoughts and comments, in no particular order:

One of the cool things about Lulu is that it lets you track sales / downloads in realtime. So, I'm excited to report that The Simplicity Cycle book is moving! It's been downloaded over 100 times (whee!), and... people are also buying the print version (whoo-hoo!). That's particularly cool because the downloads are free, whereas I make a little moolah on the print version (emphasis on little). Big thanks to all my blogger friends (new and old) who have helped spread the word!

Watched "Who Wants To Be A Superhero" last week. It was just as corny and cringeworthy as last season. The show is embarrasingly lame. We watched every single episode last season, and even though (just like last year) we said we won't watch anymore, there's a good chance we'll watch the whole thing this time too. It's like a trainwreck - I can't turn away. I also can't believe my lovely wife watches it with me... and I can't believe how badly I want to be on the show...

We're on the road today, taking the kiddo's up to the grandparents for a week by the lake... while Kim and I get to do fun things like 1) close on our house, 2) clear out the basement to get ready for the packers 3) attend a bankrupcy hearing for a lady who owes us money 4) hopefully catch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the theater.

I'm still not quite finished editing the Boomer Sisters #3 - hoping to do that this week too...

Simplicity Cycle Review!

Chet Richards is one of the last surviving "Boyd Acolytes," and is the leading authority on the work of Col John Boyd. He is a regular contributor to "Defense and the National Interest,"and I had the amazing opportunity to hear him present an updated version of Col Boyd's famous "Patterns of Conflict" briefing a few years ago. He's amazing.

So, I was bowled-over to see that he wrote a glowing review of my Simplicity Cycle book for DNI. It's not just the kind of review I wouldn't dare dream of - it's a review I wouldn't have even imagined dreaming of. To be mentioned in the same breath as Sun Tzu, Jonathon Livingston Seagull and The Elements of Style - I can barely wrap my brain around it.

I really love how his review captures what I was trying to do with the book.

Dan Ward’s entertaining little primer on the subject won’t teach you anything about simplicity that you don’t already know, but it may remind you of some ideas you’ve forgotten. One of these, probably the most important, is that simplicity requires lots of hard work, conscious, ruthless, and creative work.

The last paragraph is my favorite:

Ward, in the manner of another system simplifier, Sun Tzu, doesn’t offer up a cookbook for creating systems. Instead, he proposes and, by using clever graphs, illustrates several themes that, if you ponder them, can set you on the path to designing emotionally rewarding systems. Like Sun Tzu or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, or The Elements of Style, this is a little tome that you can keep in the center drawer of your desk and take out from time to time just to glance through. The book is obviously the product of its own advice: simple, functional, elegant.

Presidential Politics and the Web

I wasn't particularly impressed by the CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate the other night... It just didn't seem all that different from a town-hall style meeting (note to CNN: overhyping things is kinda dumb). I guess the idea of people submitting questions from far away doesn't strike me as all that innovative, even if the question is submitted online in the form of a video. Oooohhh - they submitted them online! Wow, I bet they were in full color too!

Anyway, Bill Richardson just sent me an email about his new Ask Bill feature. Here's a short excerpt from his note:

Today we've launched a new feature on our campaign site that we're calling "Ask Bill." I love answering questions, and I love talking directly to people, so that is exactly what "Ask Bill" will be -- direct questions, direct answers, directly to you.

You submit your questions through video, email or an online form -- whatever works for you. And I'll answer them on video -- clearly, honestly, and without any pundits cutting me off.

Now that is what this Web 2.0 / Cluetrain / "Join the discussion" internet thing is really about. Skip the middle man. Go directly to the Man Himself.

Even if I didn't already like Bill Richardson, I'd admire this move. In fact, I'd be glad to see all the other candidates follow suit. I bet they won't...

Click!

When I think of Adam Sandler, for some reason I think of screwy, low-brow humor (in the best possible sense of the term), even though he's done sweet romantic comedies like 50 First Dates, which I really enjoyed.

Anyway, I recently rented Click, looking for a light, make-you-laugh comedy. I'm not very critical of movies - I tend to enjoy just about every movie I see, and I really enjoyed Click. I think Sandler is not only funny, he's surprisingly thoughtful. Christopher Walkin was pretty fantastic as Morty, the guy who gives Sandler the "universal remote." David Hasselhoff had some of the funniest moments on screen, and I didn't even recognize Rob Schneider at first, in costume as "Prince Habeeboo." But despite the impression I got from the previews I'd seen, Click wasn't just a light comedy. It definitely made me laugh, but it did more than that. It also made me want to spend more time with my kids.

Not that I needed much prodding! Even though I really enjoy my job, I make it a point to skip out of work early on a fairly regular basis, to go play with the little fairy princess-artists-munchkins who live in my house. I hope I do it often enough. Not because the work doesn't matter - but because family matters so much more. I also make it a point to take vacation days on a regular, random basis - in addition to the normal Christmas & summer breaks. I'm always amazed to hear of people who have 60 or 90 vacation days stored up... and even more amazed by the excuses they give for not taking a break.

So - it was a cool movie. It surprised me by providing more than just laughs, and it reminded me of what's really important. Maybe viewers with more sophistication than I have would call it cliche'd or have other critical comments, but I'm glad I saw it...

Spreading ideas

One of the most fun things about the internet in general (and the blogosphere in particular) is the way it helps spread ideas. I seem to be having some success in this area on two big ideas I'm pushing pretty hard: distributism and The Simplicity Cycle.

First, The Distributist Review mentioned my "Distributism and Web 2.0" essay (I probably should have come up with a better title than that, shouldn't I?). I'm a little bit surprised nobody else has made the connection between these two ideas before now, but go ahead, google Distributism and Web 2.0. Only 540 pages come back, and 5 of the top 6 links are to my stuff!

Then, my buddy Andy "Surprise!" Nulman mentioned the reverse-shoplifting / International Guerilla Marketing Campaign for my Simplicity Cycle book. It was his idea in the first place, and he's one of the Unindicted Co-conspirators, which I think is awesome. I know his blog gets way more traffic than mine does, so I'm excited to see what this might lead to...

It's an amazing age we live in...

USAF Hunter/Killer UAV

The AF recently deployed a new UAV, the MQ-9 Reaper. Its predecessor, the MQ-1 Predator, was designed as a surveillance unit and later equipped with 2 Hellfire missiles. The Reaper, in comparison, was build to do the hunter/killer mission. It comes off the assembly line designed to carry 14 Hellfire II's.

Ordinarily, I'd be very excited about this. Somewhat to my surprise, it turns out I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I love the UAV concept. From a design perspective, UAV's are smaller, cheaper, simpler (no large, expensive, bulky life support gear) and in some ways are more capable than manned aircraft (they can pull more g's, since they don't have to worry about a pilot's physical limitations). They help keep our guys out of harm's way. These are all good things. I know fighter pilots tend to dislike UAV's, but as a general rule of thumb, I think UAV's rock.

However... I'm having second thoughts. I'm concerned they dehumanize war, by further removing the people pushing the button from the people who are on the receiving end of the munitions. As a wise man once said, "we kill too often because we make it too easy." (that was Batman, from the Dark Knight graphic novel).

Now, I'd love to see a day when our UAV's fight the bad guy's UAV's, and when the robots are done blowing each other up, the people on the other side surrender without any bloodshed. We're obviously not there yet, but wouldn't it be nice?

One other factor is that UAV's tend to be very, very precise. They help us minimize collateral damage, and that's a good thing too. So it's easier to take out the bad guys and leave the innocent civilians alone.

Like I said, mixed feelings...

Work...

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

- The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

In other reading news...

Alongside Harry Potter, I'm also reading an amazing book by E.F. Schumacher, titled "Small Is Beautiful." It's a wonderful exploration of "economics as if people mattered." As you might have guessed, Schumacher's ideas are very distributist (or decentralist, to use the term from the E.F. Schumacher Society's website).

Here's a short excerpt from his essay titled Buddhist Economics (demonstrating that just because he's a Christian doesn't mean he can't recognize the truth & beauty found in other faiths):

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless.

To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence.

Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.

Imagine what would happen if we had greater concern for people than for goods...

Finished!

I finished Harry Potter #7 last night, and all I can say is wow.

I think it was the best of the series. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say I loved it. Some of my favorite characters died - very sad - but they were brave deaths, good deaths...

Great story, great characters, great message. Yeah, I've always liked Star Wars, my earlier post not withstanding - but holy cow, Harry Potter #7 was fantastic.

Adorable

Took this photo with my cellphone the other day, while we were out at the school parking lot trying out her new bike (that's it in the background). She put on my baseball hat and sunglasses - too cute!

Wish I could take credit for the artful composition. The truth is, she moved (or I did), just as I clicked the button. I like how it came out.

Bottlecap Tripod

I recently heard about a "tripod" that uses bottlecap to connect a camera to a screw-top bottle - it comes from Japan, and costs about $10.

Then I found a DIY site that shows you how to make one for about $4.

There's so much about this concept that is just RIGHT. It's simple. It's inexpensive. It gets the job done. It's clever. It's portable. It's something you can make yourself (very distributist, I might add). It uses existing resources (or more accurately, re-uses them, as in Reduce-Reuse-Recycle).

I just might have to make one myself, just on principle... and I'm sure I'll use it a lot more than the large, heavy tripod I've got in my closet.

PM Boulevard

PM Boulevard, an online program management journal, just posted it's latest issue.

I mention that because they reprinted the risk management article Quaid and I wrote for Defense AT&L (The Pursuit of Courage, Judgment, and Luck: A Rogue Risk Management Rant). It's the "featured article" on the Program Management tab (you'll need to register to read it - registration is free).

The original article is here (no registration needed).

Harry Potter -vs- Star Wars

The final Harry Potter book comes out tomorrow, and I can't wait to read it (after my lovely wife does - she's a much speedier reader than I am). And since young Mr. Potter is in the news, I thought I'd pass along a quick comment.

Some people (Christians in particular) object to Ms. Rowling's positive depiction of magic. That tells me they either 1) haven't actually read the books or 2) didn't understand what they read.

Now, I'm not one of those who thinks the books are covertly Christian or anything like that, but neither do I think they're advocating evil behavior. In fact, one of the things I love about the HP books is fact that evil is portrayed as destructive, unattractive, greedy, ugly, half-dead, etc... as it should be.

And I greatly appreciate the fact that the HP marketing machine hasn't pushed the bad guys on us. You can buy a Chocolate Frog or a bag of Bertie Boyt's Every Flavor Bean, but there aren't any kids running around in Voldemort costumes on Halloween. Nobody thinks Wormtail is cool, despite his shiny silver hand. Nobody aspires to be like Draco Malfoy. That's a very, very good thing.

Compare this to recent Star Wars movie, in which the demonic Darth Maul is clearly portrayed as one of the coolest guys on screen - he's got the best weapon (double-light sabre), and his face is plastered all over t-shirts, halloween masks, etc. Where was the moral outrage over this glamorization of evil? Why weren't there any hand-wringing magazine articles about the positive portrayal of evil in Star Wars, both on screen and (especially) in the merchandise. Not that I want to see more hand-wringing... my point is the people who object to Harry Potter are barking up the wrong tree.

I'll take Harry Potter over Star Wars any day.

Whew!

Did an 8 mile run with a bunch of cadets early this morning... I held up better than I thought I did (and I didn't finish last!). I'm sure my knees will have something to say about it tomorrow, but the weather was wonderful, the scenery was great, and I'm glad I did it (and I'm glad it's done!)