Review of "Brain Rules"

Subtitled "12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and Schhol" by John Medina.

I loved this book. The brain has been fascinating to me since I studied neural networks in graduate school. This book is the most informative and readable book about the brain I have ever read. I think it is must read for anyone, especially true if you are a parent and/or teacher. The books main point is much of the brain is a mystery, but there are some thing we do know. He groups this knowledge into 12 rules.

Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.

Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.

Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

Rule #5: Repeat to remember.

Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.

Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.

Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.

One of my favorite quotes comes in the introduction "If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like the classroom. If you wanted to create a business enviroment that was direclty opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle." There are many myths busted by this book as well as some points to adjust how you live to allow your brain to function better. I think we all need that.

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

The perils of estimation

The authors makes a good point about making sure you serve the customer needs not your own.

GETting Documents From CouchDB

Pretty simple interface for an online document centric data store.

How to conduct a Five Whys root cause analysis

A good explanation of the technique with real world examples. One point that didn't get enough focus is the need for trust in the organization. Without the "respect for people pillar" this will just be a exercise in futility (e.g. the Toyota Half-Way).

Review of "The People's Tycoon"

Subtitled: "Henry Ford and the American Century" by Steve Watts.

A well written book about an interesting and amazing man. Henry Ford was born during the Civil War (1863) and died after WWII (1947). He was the father of mass production, a fervent anti-Semite, and a pacifist. He created one of the largest companies in the world then almost drove it in the ground by driving out rising stars and undercutting his only son as president. He was close friends with Thomas Edison and received a Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi Germany.

His legacy affects us today. He is the father of Lean, the consumer economy and the rise of the middle class. Some of his ideas were truly weird, but his impact on last century and thus today can not be dismissed. To understand America one needs to understand our history. Henry Ford is definitely a figure worth studying and this book is a good place to start.

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

FW: Sailing a Straight Course in a Time of Variances

A message on the Lean Software Development yahoo group by Tom Poppendieck that has a great email from Jim Womack on leadership.

Oh, You Wanted "Awesome" Edition

Funny stuff from Codinghorror.

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

Canalizing Design

A great post with a new term "Canalizing" - as in like a canal.

Malcolm is wrong

Seth Godin on the future of writers and editors and how magazines and papers are dead. I think it is obvious, but I have been known to be wrong before.

Hudson River Crossings: Improving Bus Capacity

I never plan on being a commuter from NJ to NY, but this short film was extremely well done!

WIP Limits are for Adults too!

I have had the same thoughts as Alistair. This response from David Anderson basically says we need limits because that's how we do it. I think WIP limits can help when you are learning (prevents you from sliding down the path of large amounts of WIP), but I think your goal would be to not need them as your process becomes more mature. A lean practitioner blogged a similar idea as The Fifth Primary Practice of Kanban, but kinda wimped out on his original idea of "Eliminate Kanban".

Katas.MonopolyTheGame

Interesting idea: work a fairly simple problem many times so the variations will be the techniques used. Now to make the time to do this!

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

Immovable Object versus Unstoppable Force: Capex and the Marginal Cost of Production

Kent Beck on economics and other things. Most interestingly is that he is selling a 2 hour pair programming session on eBay! Started at$50 yesterday and after 12 hours has gone up above $200. I wonder what the final price will be?

Why the Chinese Save

This is just plain weird: "Some say that a major cause of the U.S. housing bubble was a surge in savings overseas, particularly in China, where the personal savings rate soared to 30 percent of disposable income...China’s “one child” policy, which created a huge surplus of men in the country, has driven up the cost of getting married...could account for as much as half of the increase in the country’s household savings since 1990."

The Ricci riddle and the law's limits vs. On Race, The Slog Goes On

These two columns cover the same supreme court decision, but look at it COMPLETELY differently. The second is from George Will and makes sense to me. The first makes some statements which make me tilt my head: "The two decisions are mirror images in terms of their consequences, one harming minorities and one harming whites." I don't see how one can make such a statement. I do know that the law is in for a rough road as we recover from decades of racism.

The Case for Restructuring IT

A good case that covers the reasons for the current structure as well as an appeal for change. I think it will happen as money will force it. Lean won manafacturring and it will win in IT as well.

The Toyota Half-Way

Points out that without respect for people there is no way you're getting any benefit.

On Business Maturity

Good post with an interesting question at the end "Is what I wrote above the case? And if so, how should that impact the way we test software?"

How maths killed Lehman Brothers

As I like to say "Do the math!"

The End of a DBMS Era (Might be Upon Us)

The author makes a good point. I happen to think one-size fits all is a bad idea with technology.

How we do MVC – View models

Takes the popular MVC pattern and shows you their approach.

The void is invariant

Details on the CLI that make sense.

New Features in C# 4.0

The 12 page document is the first link on the page. It is a good summary of the changes in C# 4.0 with examples. The changes can be summarized thusly: Dynamic lookup, Named and optional parameters, COM specific interop features, and Variance.

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

Vacuum tubes populate unique chessboard

This is neat!

Fighting Fabricated Complexity

I like the term fabricated complexity and I believe it is a major component in most systems.The post has some good points but it does go quite deep on metrics so beware.

Real World Refactoring

Some decent code that the author refactors and makes even better.