Thursday 11 December 2008

Seth Godin: Tribes

Seth Godin wants you to use the Internet to communicate your passion to others.


As the pace of change increases, the "rush from stability" combines with new technology to present everybody with opportunities for leadership, but the fear of failure inhibits people from acting differently.

The book is a loose collection of anecdotes about creating and leading "tribes" in a world of new technology. A tribe is a group that shares strongly held beliefs or aims and forms around a leader.



The essence of leadership is a willingness to fail and to lead people further than they have ever been.

Key Quotations

  • "Today's market place rewards heretics." (p. 11).

  • "Being charismatic doesn't make you a leader. Being a leader makes you charismatic. (p. 127)


Seth Godin

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author of business books. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing and set up the website, Squidoo.com.


Links

Squidoo.com

Sunday 6 April 2008

Robert Greene: The 48 Laws of Power


Robert Greene has written a book in the tradition of Machiavelli. He illustrates his "laws" with historical examples of what happens when they are followed or transgressed. Each chapter concludes with a section discussing the reversal of the law. The book is charmingly laid out with the main narrative flanked by fables, anecdotes and maxims. 

But a question arises: Is Greene's rhetorical display of candour to be taken at face value, or are the "laws" themselves merely playful inventions of a fertile mind that has found a lucrative publishing niche?





 


Key Quotations

  • An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power, a mistake that will cost you a lot more than any temporary satisfaction you might gain by expressing your feelings.
  • Like Janus, the double-faced Roman deity and guardian of all gates and doorways, you must be able to look in both directions at once, the better to handle danger from wherever it comes. 
  • Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power.

Robert R. Greene

Born in Los Angeles in May 14, 1959, Greene attended the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received a degree in classical studies. He has worked in New York City as an editor and writer for several magazines, including Esquire, and in Hollywood as a story developer and writer. He lived for years in London, Paris, and Barcelona. In 1995 Greene was involved in the planning and creation of the art school Fabrica outside Venice, Italy. (Source: Wikipedia)


Links

Wednesday 23 January 2008

W. F. & E. S. Friedman: The Shakespearian Ciphers Examined


Is there a secret cypher buried in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, or hidden on his epitaph? If
such a cypher exist, does it show that Bacon wrote the plays?

The rules governing cyphers must be unambiguous, the solution grammatically and semantically coherent. Two cryptanalysts working independently should reach identical answers.

In 1955 two professional cryptographers, William and Elizabeth Friedman, subjected the "cyphers" and "secret sigilli" to scientific testing and proved them false.

Elizabeth Wells Gallup thought Shakespeare's first folio concealed Bacon's bilateral cypher, but her results were subjective, her premises fallacious.

Other patent absurdities are patiently debunked.


Key Quotations


  • Taking a page from an ordinary school edition of Julius Caesar, we produced our own message, a good outspoken one: Dear Reader: Theodore Roosevelt is the true author of this play but I, Bacon, stole it from him and have the credit. Friedman can prove that this is so by this cock-eyed cypher invented by Doctor C. (p. 162-3) [This passage debunks Dr. Cunningham's cryptographic theory by applying it's method and producing the above "message".]
  • With each successive letter deciphered she had a choice - limited but definite - of possibilities; and so, as she went on, there would be a kind of collaboration between the decipherer and the text, each influencing the other. Hence perhaps the curious maundering wordy character of the extracted messages, very like the communications of the spirit world: with some sense but no real mind behind them, just a sort of drifting intention, taking occasional sudden whimsical turns when the text momentarily mastered the decipherer. (p. 264)
  • ...one may well wonder if reasoned argument is going to carry much weight with investigators who are so constantly moved by the providential ordering of the merely coincidental. (p. 284)


W. G. & E. S. Friedman
W. G. Friedman (1891-1969) was a US Army cryptologist who ran the research division of the SIS in the 1930s, and similar services into the 1950s. His team, led by Frank Rowlett, broke Japan's PURPLE cipher, thus disclosing Japanese diplomatic secrets in World War II.

E. S. Friedman (1892-1980) was a Shakespeare enthusiast, cryptanalyst, and pioneer in U.S. cryptology who introduced her husband to the field. After working for the U.S. Navy she moved to the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition and Bureau of Customs where she successfully broke the increasingly sophisticated cyphers of numerous international smuggling and drug running rings.

Links

David Hurley
100-Word-Book-Reviews.com

Monday 7 January 2008

William Shakespeare: Romeo And Juliet





Romeo is lovesick for Rosaline until Mercutio persuades him to gatecrash their enemy, Capulet's, party. Romeo promptly falls for Capulet's daughter, Juliet, scales a wall approaches Juliet's balcony and is well met by moonlight. A conniving Friar secretly marries them the morning after.

Romeo intervenes in a swordfight, inadvertantly causing Mercutio to be killed by Juliet's cousin. He avenges Mercutio's death. Juliet is upset, Romeo banished.

Juliet feigns death rather than (unlawfully) marry Paris, her father's choice. All suppose her dead, including Romeo, who kills Paris outside, himself inside the tomb. Juliet revives, plucks Romeo's dagger and perishes beside Romeo.



Key Quotations

  • True, I talk of dreams,
    Which are the children of an idle brain,
    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
    Which is as thin of substance as the air
    And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
    Even now the frozen bosom of the north
    And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence
    Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. (Mercutio)
  • With love's light wings I did o'erperch these walls,
    For stony limits cannot hold love out,
    And what love can do, that dares love attempt. (Romeo)
  • My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
    My love as deep: the more I give to thee
    The more I have, for both are infinite. (Juliet)


William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, as a young man he moved to London where he worked as an actor, writer, and part owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men, a theatre company.

His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several shorter poems. His plays are performed more often than any other playwrite's and include comedies, tragedies, histories, and genre-crunching tragi-comedies and romances.

http://chironthecentaur.blogspot.com/