"Not all opinions are created equal. Some are a great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." Douglas Adams
Last year was a great year for good books. I tend to prefer history over other topics, but this year’s non-fiction picks included sociology, economics, and literature…but all, still, with a link to history.
In no particular order, then, my favorite non-fiction reads of 2012 are…
The paradigm of a teacher standing in front of a classroom at a chalkboard is a relict of the past. A great tool circa “Little House on the Prairie,” the blackboard should go the same way as the one-room school house. More pay alone, with insufficient merit requirements, does not improve schools. A better solution is found in merit pay, technology integration and school choice.
Isaacson’s biography is fascinating, covering warts and and moles along with his contributions and genius. With direct access to Jobs, his associates, rivals, and family, it is an incomparable work that will be the defining biography for decades to come.
I suppose there are a lot of ways to look at Steve Jobs. However you view him, though, it’s hard to dispute his success in technology, design, and animation. Not quite an inventor or engineer, Jobs thought himself more an artist, and perhaps he was. He had an attention to detail and a vision of minimalism that allowed him to build great products that changed how we compute, listen to music, and make purchases, to say nothing of his contributions to the digital animation industry with Pixar. [cont…]
Every time one of those Occupy Wall Street (and their lesser known cousins, like Occupy Salt Lake) tweet their status on their iPhone, I am struck by the irony. Steve Jobs was a capitalist, and were it not for Wall Street, there might not have been a Steve Jobs or that iPhone. It was the access […]
RSS - Posts