eBook Review: Moneyball

Michael Lewis, Moneyball

Product Details

• File Size: 551 KB
• Print Length: 316 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0393057658
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 15, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005G5PPGS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars (865 customer reviews) 
• Price: $9.57

1. Short review:  (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.)
If I give a book 5 stars, you can bet money and give odds that I will read it again. 

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: Great writing. Moneyball is about baseball's use of the wrong statistics. Baseball fans who are mathematicians strove to devise the right statistics and get the major outfits to accept them.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? If -- like me -- you have done professional statistics and know how hard it is to get the right measurements, it is a roller coaster. Else, it is a brisk walk-in-the-park.
Worth the money and then some.

2.2. What I did not like: Nothing that I can think of.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Statisticians. Baseball rebels.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes. Just discovered that Michael Lewis also wrote The Blind Side. I loved the movie. It's an odds-on bet I'll love the book.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     Given that this is non-fiction (why do we refer to books about reality in the negative?), there should not be a plot, but there is.
     The tension in the book builds with the chapter devoted to Bill James. James worked to devise meaningful statistics for baseball. As opposed to the old statistics. James published his work under the title Baseball Abstracts. James was not the first to approach baseball measurements by the scientific method, but, like Christopher Columbus's discovery of the Americas, his work was the one that led to meaningful exploitation. James cried out in the wilderness for 20 years before a single team in major league baseball started to use his numbers.
     That team was the Oakland A's. Sandy Alderson, the penultimate general manager of the A's, applied James's Sabermetrics to his farm system but not to his major league club. The A's owner at the time, Walter Haas, pumped money into the club to buy championships. That changed when Haas sold the team. The new owners, Lew Wolf and John Fisher, ran and run the A's as a business. Billy Beane became the A's GM when Alderson left. Without the deep pockets of Haas, Beane turned to Sabermetrics to build winning teams on the cheap.
     Beane's decision to use Sabermetrics should have been a non-event. Instead, it started a war.
     If you are keeping score in the war, Sabermetrics is winning.

 2.7. Other:

     The movie of the same title portrays Beane and his manager, Art Howe, as being in constant conflict. The book does not give that feeling at all. The book makes it clear that the A's were run by Beane's directives, not Howe's. If anything, the book hinted that Howe feared Beane.

     Why is there a war over Sabermetrics?
     I was watching a playoff game last week, and I saw the broadcaster post an 'Innovative Stat': OPS. OPS is a Sabermetric for On-base-percentage-Plus-Slugging-percentage. This stat is the most accurate measure available of a hitter's value to his team. Why call it innovative?
     'Cause it ain't Batting Average. That's the traditional stat.
     What about Batting Average?
     It's crap.
     Think about it. Batting Average (Avg) is the number of hits (H) divided by the number of at-bats (AB). Avg = H/AB. But walks do not count as at-bats. Nor do they count as hits. How blind is that?
     If you manage a baseball team, you want runners. Does it matter to you if they got to first by a hit or by a walk? You may think you don't care, but a walk requires more pitches of the opposing team's pitcher and reduces the number of innings he can pitch. In truth, you prefer walks to singles.
     Worse, a single counts the same toward Batting Average as a home-run. That is totally blind.
     Baseball stats came about through the efforts of an Englishman, Henry Chadwick. Chadwick was familiar with cricket and tried to measure performance in baseball using stats from cricket. Cricket does not have walks. Chadwick did not know what to make of walks as measures of performance. So he ignored them. He invented the concept of error which is his opinion of what should have happened. Henry Chadwick is responsible for the nonsense that is baseball statistics. The men of baseball have blindly followed Chadwick's statistics for a hundred and fifty years. These have become the traditional statistics.
     Why don't the-powers-that-be in major league baseball abandon Chadwick's nonsense for James's falsifiable (that is, testable) Sabermetrics?

    
         YMMV.

2.8. Links: Sabermetrics

2.9. Buy the book: Moneyball

eBook Review: Buck Fever

Ben Rehder, Buck Fever

Product Details 

• File Size: 1034 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ben Rehder (September 9, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005MAA8LY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Price: $4.99

1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: The story. The characters that I recognize.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Roller coaster.
Worth the money and then some.

2.2. What I did not like: I was disappointed that the hero did not get the bad guy himself, but the ending was more realistic as written.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Thriller fans.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Probably not. No overt sex in the book, but there is reference to bestial necrophilia that you hope your kiddies don't get.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes. Already have.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     John Marlin, the local game warden, is called to the ranch of retired lobbyist Roy Swank to investigate a case of poaching gone wrong. His adventures lead him to interrupt the traffic of cocaine hidden in trophy deer Swank has imported for the hunting season.

 2.7. Other:

     I found this a fun book. I looked forward to returning to my Kindle to read it each time.
     Buck Fever missed five stars from me by a hair's breadth. I think you will enjoy it. I did. 

     YMMV.
2.8. Links: Ben Rehder

2.9. Buy the book: Buck Fever

Movie Reviews: Jobs / Moneyball

   

Jobs / Moneyball   
1. Short review: Jobs  / Moneyball

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked:
Jobs: Josh Gad's performance as Steve Wozniak, and sometimes Dermot Mulroney's performance as Mike Markkula. Nothing else.

Moneyball: Brad Pitt's performance. The little girl's song. The truth of Moneyball which managed to fight its way through the twisted conflicts that the screenwriter -- Aaron Sorkin -- believed necessary to insert into a movie that, superficially, is about baseball but is in reality a movie about business.

2.2. What I did not like:
Jobs: Ashton Kutcher's performance as Steve Jobs. Kutcher played the title character, and he botched it. Evidently he spent hours studying Jobs's walk, Jobs's quirky hand gestures, and Jobs's rages. Kutcher seemed to believe that copying those external motions was enough. But his character had none of Jobs's fire, none of the passion, none of the drive. Kutcher's performance was a caricature of Steve Jobs and a poor one.

Moneyball: The script. Aaron Sorkin can write the life out of any story he comes in contact with. Why do we need to see Billy Beane's ex-wife and her new husband? Or Casey Beane? As much as I like the little girl Casey Beane's song -- and I do -- it does not add two cents to the movie.

I would like to say that I liked Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance of Oakland A's manager Art Howe, but I cannot. Hoffman gave a one-dimensional performance. The worst I have ever seen him do. Besides, Hoffman is about as good a fit to play Art Howe as I am to play Prince Harry. Fire the casting director.

2.3. Who I think is the audience:

Jobs: Ashton Kutcher.

Moneyball: Anyone who is interested in baseball or the business of sports. 

2.4. Are the movies appropriate for children to see? No sex, but some foul language. Your call.

2.5. On the basis of viewing these movies, will I pay to see the sequels? No to both.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:
-- I want my money back.<-- Jobs
-- Worth a rental, not more. 
-- Worth first-run theater price once. <-- Moneyball
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. 

Running time: Jobs, 122 long minutes. Moneyball, 133 minutes (with decent editing, could have done it in 100 minutes).

2.6.2. The plots in a nutshell:

     Jobs plot.
     The plot -- what there is of it -- is incomprehensibly incomplete. The movie begins with Jobs introducing the iPod to Apple employees. That frames rest of the movie. Everything else is a flashback. But the movie never returns to the iPod. The flashback ends in 1996 with Jobs forcing Markkula out of Apple's board. What comes between is only chronicle with no attempt to make sense of any of it. In effect, the screenwriter, Matt Whiteley, gave us an open-faced, regurgitated sandwich with one slice of bread, the rancid meat of Ashton Kutcher, and topped with the cornstarch-based gravy of Apple's mystique.
     Where is the iMac? Where is the iPhone? Why is so much missing?
     Forget the hardware and the software. Where is the passion that drove Steve Jobs? It ain't in this movie.

     Moneyball plot.
     Moneyball is a book about an idea -- sabermetrics -- that changed the business of professional baseball. I have a sample of the book on my Kindle, keeping company with thirty-six other samples. (Hey, that's down from last month's forty-eight samples.) The movie makes it out to be the fight of one man -- Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager -- to change the game against the opposition of his conservative scouts and his unyielding manager.
     Given the history of problems with the production of Moneyball, it is a wonder the movie got made. When it did, it got saddled with Aaron Sorkin who decided to make it a 'One Good Man versus The World' show. I don't know Aaron Sorkin, but I can tell he does not know how business organizations are run. The movie Billy Beane never explains the sabermetrics idea to his scouts or to his manager. He never tries to get them to buy into his philosophy. This is not the way an organization is run. Except in Aaron Sorkin's wild imagination.

2.7. Other:

     My wife is a big fan of Steve Jobs. This movie popped up on VOD, and she had to see it. We paid a premium price for the movie. First-run theater ticket price.
     For crap.
     I am not the only one who thinks so. Steve Wozniak 'read [the script] as far as he "could stomach it and felt it was crap . . . ."'  
     FWIW my wife -- fanatical as she is about Steve Jobs -- fell asleep half an hour in.
     Forget this movie. The writing is bad and Ashton Kutcher's acting is worse. Ashton Kutcher was good in That '70s Show when essentially he played himself. Since then, his best performance has been passable; that is, mediocre.
      If you want to see Steve Jobs, watch Pirates of Silicon Valley, a good movie, or Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, an outstanding interview with the man. Steve Jobs's passion comes across in the interview.

     After I had suffered through the disaster that is Jobs, I flipped off the VOD and lo-and-behold Moneyball came up for free on a different cable channel. I watched it while my wife slept. Why? Well, I like the movie, warts and all.
     There is a lot wrong with Moneyball, but Brad Pitt's performance is spot on.
     I saw A River Runs Through It and thought Pitt was just a pretty boy. Mr and Mrs Smith gave me some indication that he could act. Moneyball proves Pitt can act. Pitt's performance here reminds me of Robert Redford's performance in Jeremiah Johnson. It is a demonstration that he is something more than a pretty face.

     I have read other reviews. Some love Kutcher's performance. Others hate Pitt's performance. So . . .
     YMMV.

2.8. Links:
Jobs: IMDb review, Rotten Tomatoes review 
Moneyball: IMDb review, Rotten Tomatoes review

eBook Review: Grumbles from the Grave

(Image from the paperback listing at amazon.com.)

Robert A Heinlein, Grumbles from the Grave

Product Details from Baen's Books

Published 11/18/1989
SKU: 9780345362469
Ebook Price: $6.00

1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: The intimate look into Heinlein's world.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Walk-in-the-park.
Worth the money. Seems to me that the prices at Baen's Books have gone up. Navigating their website remains an exercise in tedious chaos. If you want the book, I recommend you chase this review's links at the top (click the cover image) or the bottom (click the book title).

2.2. What I did not like: The organization confused me a bit; the book is organized chronologically within topic. That means a topic may end in 1978 and the next chapter begin with a missive written in 1947. I am confident that Virginia Heinlein put much effort into the organization and found this one the best.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: RAH fans. Writers.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. Rare use of profanity, but the kiddies have heard it.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? I buy a Heinlein book about once a month. After reading Grumbles from the Grave, my RAH buying habit will continue. So, yes.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     This is an epistolary memoir, so there should be no plot. In fact, there are many. The organization Virginia Heinlein chose permitted plots to arise in each chapter as she followed developments within a topic.
     This means there are so many plots that I would need more time and space to detail each than I shall devote to this review. However, I shall give one example.
     CHAPTER III: THE SLICKS AND THE SCRIBNER'S JUVENILES chronicles RAH's continuing fight with his editor at Scribner, Alice Dalgliesh. RAH complained about the changes Ms Dalgliesh insisted he make, but directed his complaints to his agent. For instance, Ms Dalgliesh refused to publish works in which children wielded firearms and demanded that RAH excise or rewrite such scenes. (FWIW I got my first gun when I was eight years old and was expected to use to kill rabid critters. By nine, I had shot rabid skunks at a distance of 300 yards. And buried the bodies deep so that the dogs would not dig them up.)
     RAH made the changes.
     His complaints grew more strident as the years passed. Finally, his agent submitted a work he knew Ms Dalgliesh would reject and that rejection released RAH from his contract with Scribner.

 2.7. Other:

     Writers will get the most from reading this book. It is comforting to find that the first Grandmaster of Science Fiction struggled with editors and garnered rejections.
     What impressed me was that RAH's editors recommended changes but RAH made the changes himself. Most editors I have sampled want to write their changes into my text. That changes the voice from mine to theirs. I have found one editor who does not write in changes, and I stick with her.
     RAH began Stranger in a Strange Land in 1948 and struggled with it for a dozen years. His publisher had him trim off a quarter of his submitted manuscript. I read that version years ago. Another version with excised material stuck in was published in 1991. There is a spirited debate -- that is, a fight with blood running in the streets -- going on in the 1-star reviews for Stranger.

     RAH's agent was named Lurton Blassingame, a name that I find amusing. Apparently, he was quite the congenial gentleman and dedicated agent. Many of his principals adored him and dedicated books to him, including RAH. I wonder if he had a nickname. 'Spanky' maybe?
   
     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Robert A Heinlein

2.9. Buy the book: Grumbles from the Grave

Movie Review: The Blind Side

The Blind Side

1. Short review: 

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The message. This movie wrapped its message in a pretty package, but it is the message that shines through.

2.2. What I did not like: The fact that I missed it in theaters. 

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Everyone. You especially.

2.4. Is the movie appropriate for children to see? Yes. Without a doubt.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? There cannot and need not be a sequel. But if there were, I would pay to see it. 

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:
-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more. 
-- Worth first-run theater price once.
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. <-- The Blind Side

Running time: 129 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot in a nutshell:

     Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), abandoned by his addict of a mother, is living on the streets where Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) finds him and takes him into her home. He becomes one of the Tuohy family, first by heart, then by law.
     Michael goes out for football in high school and becomes a phenomenon. Colleges across the country recruit him. He chooses Ole Miss, the school the Tuohys attended. The NCAA investigates to determine if there was anything untoward in Michael's choice of Ole Miss. Michael convinces the investigator his choice was sincere. 
     Michael excels in his position at Ole Miss and is drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.

2.7. Other:

     I missed this movie in theaters and saw it first on TV. May have been VOD. I do not recall. I have seen it, oh, three more times and enjoyed every viewing.

     The movie cost $29,000,000 to make and, in theaters alone, earned $255,959,475.

     Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy. Word is that Bullock turned down the role three times. Then she 'visited' with Leigh Anne Tuohy. After that 'visit', Bullock accepted the role and took a pay cut. That musta been some 'visit'. 
     If she would take the job, Leigh Anne Tuohy would make a great US Secretary of State.

     I agree that Sandra Bullock gave a fine performance in The Blind Side, but I preferred the performance Quinton Aaron gave as Michael Oher. His performance was subtle and self-deprecating but always on point and strong. Soft but strong.

     What is the message of The Blind Side?
     Blood and skin color do not make family. Heart makes family.
     There are two scenes that define The Blind Side.
     In the first, Leigh Anne Tuohy confronts the gangbanger Alton in front of the apartment where she suspects Michael went the night before (clip above):

                      LEIGH ANNE
          Michael was here?

                         ALTON
          Last night. Sneaked me then took
          off like a little bitch. So you
          tell him, sleep with one eye open.
          You hear me, bitch?

          [Leigh Anne steps closer to Alton, stares him down.]

                         LEIGH ANNE
          No, you hear me, bitch. You
          threaten my son, you threaten me.

     Leigh Anne referred to Michael as her son. In her heart, that's what he is.
     In the second scene that defines the movie, Michael faces the NCAA investigator Granger and answers the question of why he chose Ole Miss:

                      MICHAEL
          You never asked why I wanted to go
          there.

                         GRANGER
          All right, fine, Michael... why do
          you want to go to Ole Miss?

                         MICHAEL
          It's where my family goes to
          school. It's where they've always
          gone to school.

     To me, this is the one scene that defines the movie. Michael considers the Tuohys his family.

     I am an adopted son.
     As far back as I can recall, I have always known that family is a matter not of blood but of heart.
     There was a time when adoption was a hot topic. There were made-for-TV movies about adopted kids searching for their birth parents. I was home from college, and we watched one of those movies. I sat there thinking about the search. Wondering.
     My father opened the topic.
     "You ever want to find out who you came from?"
     Me: "Hadn't given it much thought."
     Pause. "Tell you what. If you want to search for them, I'll support you for a year while you search."
     I looked at my father.
     "You don't have to answer right now. But I want an answer before you go back to school tomorrow night."
     The next night at supper, Daddy looked at me and said, "Well?" We both knew what he meant.
     I answered, "I know who my father is."
     Daddy nodded. He daubed at his eyes with his napkin and did not eat much that night. I saw silent tears running down my mother's face.
     Family is not a matter of blood. Family is a matter of heart.
     Michael Oher knows who his family is. So do I.

Addendum:
     I watched The Blind Side on cable again and discovered why I think Quinton Aaron's performance superior to Sandra Bullock's. Sandra Bullock's portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy does not vary from start to finish. The character is the same at the end as she was in the beginning. One trick pony. In contrast, Quinton Aaron changed the character of Michael Oher. When you watch the movie, mark the facial expressions of Michael Oher at the beginning of the movie and again when he begins school at Ole Miss. Quinton Aaron portrayed an unhappy kid who became a happy man. I think that takes a great deal more acting skill: to portray a changing character. And Quinton Aaron did it with his face. Kudos to Quinton Aaron.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links:

IMDb review
Rotten Tomatoes review

Five-O

     I like Hawaii Five-O. Not the original series with Jack Lord. The new series with Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim, and Grace Park. Especially eye-candy Grace Park. Too skinny for my taste, but she sports a pretty face and the most sensual lips currently on TV.
     I got a kick out of episode 2.18 'Lekio' ('Radio') when Scott Caan played opposite his father, James Caan. Rumor has it that Jimmy Caan offered to do the job for the gift of a watch as compensation just so he could spend time with his son. I believe that rumor. Anyway, I enjoyed that show a lot.
     Five-O episodes sometimes leave me thinking about issues that the writers bring up. Episode 2.10 "Ki'ilua" ('Deceiver') was one that left me thinking. Here's my synopsis: 

Without authorization and against standing orders, Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin)  slips into North Korea to ransom the finance of a friend. He gets captured by outlaws. (The friend is complicit in his capture.) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Five-O figures out where Steve is and what has happened. They decide to rescue him and enlist a couple of retired Navy Seals to help them. Bad guys die. Five-O and the Seals rescue Steve.

     On the face of it, this is a straight-forward 'leave no one behind' story. But scratch it just a little and life issues of allegiance and loyalty pop up. Life issues. I'm not talking about "What am I gonna have for breakfast? Cereal or eggs?" I'm talking "What will I risk my blood, my life, and my honor to save?" That's the heart of this story.
     You see, Steve violated his oath of commission in the Navy to help a friend. This struck me with tremendous force immediately. He dishonored his sworn allegiance to the US Constitution to go to the aid of a friend. In other words, his implied loyalty took precedence over his sworn loyalty.
     To rescue Steve, every remaining member of Five-O plus two Navy Seals violated their oaths. That says that their implied loyalty to Steve took precedence over their sworn loyalty.
     What will I risk my blood, my life, and my honor to save?

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

     Above is the full current text of the Pledge of Allegiance. It has been such since 1954 when the words 'under God' were added in an attempt to exclude godless Communists.
     I will not recite this pledge. To do so would violate my sworn oath.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

     This is the oath I swore when I was commissioned in the US Air Force. I swore my allegiance to the Constitution, not to the Flag and not to the Republic. There is a meaningful difference.
     About a month after I resigned my commission, I received a letter from the Secretary of the Air Force that informed me that, while I was no longer on active duty, I was still bound by my oath and, if the Air Force needed me, I was subject to recall at their discretion for the rest of my life. And, yes, they have recalled soldiers to active duty. Douglas MacArthur retired from military service 31 December 1937 but was recalled to active duty in 1941.
     All my fellow officers took the same oath. The oath of enlistment is similar. In its allegiance to the Constitution, it is identical.

allegiance, (noun) loyalty or commitment to a superior or to a group or cause
--Oxford Dictionaries

     What is the Constitution? A cause? It is not a superior or a group. Is it just a document? Did I and my fellow officers swear allegiance to a scrap of parchment?
     Perhaps Oxford's definition is lacking.

al·le·giance, n.
1. Loyalty or the obligation of loyalty, as to a nation, sovereign, or cause. See Synonyms at fidelity.
2. The obligations of a vassal to a lord.
--The American Heritage Dictionary

     The AHD definition adds more detail. I note the obligation of loyalty to a sovereign. Officers of the Royal Army and Royal Air Force swear their allegiance to the monarch. Curiously, officers of the Royal Navy do not.
     AHD's second definition makes it seem as if the vassal owes loyalty to his lord but the lord owes no loyalty in return. Perhaps this is a deliberate attempt to keep the definition short. It does, however, overlook the fact that the lord has a duty to his vassal. For the vassal's pledge, the lord undertakes to confirm the vassal in his possessions and to defend such so that the vassal will have the means to execute his pledge.

     The Constitution is different. It is an ideal. It is an ideal that changes, and we who swore allegiance to it do not control the changes.
     In 1896, the Constitution said that separate institutions for blacks gave equal treatment. From 1954, the Constitution says that separate institutions for blacks are inherently unequal. I prefer the latter interpretation. There have been other changes I was not so fond of.
     When that to which I swore allegiance changes to espouse a view that is antithetical to my beliefs, am I still bound by my oath?
     In a nutshell, I owe my loyalty to the Constitution, but the Constitution owes no loyalty to me.

     In the Five-O episode 'Deceiver', everyone owed loyalty to the Constitution. The Constitution owed no loyalty to them. And yet the writers would have us believe that each and every one chose to abandon his sworn oath to help a friend. The whole story fails or succeeds on whether we find that choice credible.
     And we do.

     Why?

     Why should we believe that men who served the toughest military organization in the world, men whose word is their bond, would dishonor their sworn oath to help a friend?
     Because that's the choice we would make.
     I watched that episode, and I thought, "Yeah, I would do that." I would risk blood, life, and dishonor to save Steve because I believe Steve would do the same for me. My loyalty to Steve is returned.
     My loyalty to the Constitution is not returned.

     There is a story, "No Truce with Kings" by Poul Anderson. Won the Hugo for 1964. Beat out Zelazny's "A Rose for Ecclesiastes". In "No Truce with Kings", the United States has dissolved. How, we don't know. In its place are smaller states, and the Pacific States of America is one of them. One group tries to forge a new, continent-spanning nation-state like the United States. They are defeated by the clannish armies of the PSA, men who owe allegiance to their colonels, colonels who owe allegiance to their lords, lords who owe allegiance to the sovereign or to no man.
     "No Truce with Kings" is an argument for the feudal concept of loyalty. Loyalty to a person. Loyalty that is returned. In the story, the feudal concept of loyalty prevails over the concept of loyalty to an ideal.

     It is a dangerous thing when a man begins to question his sworn allegiance, but these are dangerous times.

     YMMV.

eBook Review: Scratch

Danny Gillan, Scratch

Product Details

• File Size: 575 KB
• Print Length: 293 pages
• Publisher: Jakobian Books, 1 edition (March 10, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004RQ8WEO
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars (37 customer reviews)
• Price: $0.99

1. Short review:  (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.) Chick lit with testicles.

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: The characters.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Walk-in-the-park.
Worth the money. 

2.2. What I did not like: There is a lot of profanity and a lot of drunkenness. Are Scots truly foul-mouthed sots?

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Chick lit fans. 

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? No. Not at all. 17+ only.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Maybe. Danny writes well, but I am not a fan of chick lit.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     Boy had girl. Boy lost girl. Boy gets girl back. Boy loses girl again. Boy's father shoves epiphany down boy's throat.

 2.7. Other:

     The hero of the tale is James Cooper. He is a wanker. His friends say so, his work associates say so, his girlfriend says so, and his girlfriend's father says so. But he's a lovable wanker. The spineless git.
    
     I was two-thirds of the way through this book when it dawned on me that I was reading chick lit. With testicles. Danny gives the reader Cooper's feelings and thoughts in detail. But by that time I was thoroughly engaged with the characters, and I liked the book: 4 stars.
     Within spitting distance of the ending, Cooper's girlfriend dumped him. Cooper's lack of reaction incensed me. At that point I hated the book: 0 stars. Had it been a paperback, I would have thrown it away then and there.
     A hair's breadth away from the ending, Cooper's father -- who had been a cypher until that point -- shoved an epiphany down Cooper's wanker throat. And Cooper swallowed it. Not whole, but little by little. The non-redemptive yet hopeful ending followed soon thereafter.
     That is when I realized that Danny had taken me on an emotional roller coaster in the course of a single book. That's why I read. 5 stars.

     You need to know some Scottish slang to understand the text:

bint, n. an attractive but difficult woman
pish, n. rubbish
pished, adj. drunk
skelp, v. to hit
skite, v. to hit

If you need more, here is a Scottish slang dictionary.

     To this day, I still have no idea why Danny chose that title. 
   
     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Danny Gillan

2.9. Buy the book: Scratch

Lies

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

     In my last post, I wrote 'History is about lies'. I also wrote that lies arise from two sources: 1) ignorance, which is inexcusable, and 2) bias, which is tolerable.
     Why do I find ignorance inexcusable and bias tolerable?
     Bias is tolerable because a biased account can be weighed against another account with a different bias. The alternative is no account. Every writer brings a bias to his subject. If a writer states his bias up front, he is being honest with the reader, and the reader can trust or distrust the account accordingly. A writer who hides his bias and presents his account as true is dishonest and is lying to the reader. He cannot be trusted.
     Ignorance is inexcusable because it renders the writer's argument not just weaker but false in all. Last time I wrote about a history professor who stated that the firing rate of the Brown Bess musket was one shot every three or four minutes. He was mistaken. Where he got his information, I do not know. I do know that he was wrong. He made the assumption that he was correct and never bothered to validate it. Why did he not validate his assumption? Arrogance.
     He was wrong about muskets. What else was he wrong about? Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. (False in one, false in all.)
 
     Besides a degree in history, I have a degree in mathematics. Better than that, I have experience in applied statistics. By that I mean I have searched for the right data, collected the data, collated the data, performed analyses, and reported the results. Did my work do any measurable good? Yeah. It demonstrably improved the communications performance of the USAF Satellite Control Network (reduced network connections times from 6m50s to 4m10s at the 95th percentile) and saved $50 million a year in operating costs.
     (An aside: I spent months learning how to perform parametric analyses on normally distributed data. Away from academia and in the sogenannte 'real' world, I found most -- that is, almost all -- distributions to be right-skewed. Parametrics are less than worthless on right-skewed populations. They will yield answers that are meaningless, but they will yield them with such accuracy and precision as to imbue the reader with confidence in the answers.
     (I found that I spent 85% of my time collecting and collating data, 5% of my time analyzing data, and 10% of my time reporting the results of my work to decision-makers who didn't know statistics and didn't want to know statistics. They wanted me to find problems and recommend fixes. I found I got 5% of my payoff from collecting and collating data, 10% from analyzing data, and 85% from presenting the results of my work to decision-makers who didn't know statistics and didn't want to know statistics. I got to be real good at presentation.)
     I know whereof I speak. I also know how little I know. But I also know how little others know, and I know that they do not know how little they know. Did you get that?
     Any spreadsheet software will give you access to 90% of the most powerful parametric operations I know. In 5 minutes, you can do the statistics I spent months to learn and years to master.
     The difference between us is that I know when those statistics apply and when they don't. (Assuming you are not a statistician.)
     I know the right stats tell an intuitive truth and the wrong stats tell a convincing lie. Without my experience, I would not know the difference. Neither will you.

     In the world of today, everyone has the same religion, and that religion is called NUMBERS. People believe in numbers with blind faith.
     In the world of today, I am a heretic. I do not believe numbers. Not until I know where they come from and what they purport to say. And not always then.
 
     30% Thirty percent. Ebooks account for 30% of the book market.
     I have read this many times on different blogs. Dean Wesley Smith, whom I read and respect, has repeated it many times.
     I think 30% is a lie.
     What do you see when you look at that statistic? A number? Do you have faith in numbers?
     I see a bastard child, an illegitimate statistic. First thing I want to know is who's your father? Who's your mother? Are you from uptown, downtown, or the boondocks?
     Invariably, when I chase the statistic I find it comes from the American Booksellers Association. The ABA is that statistic's father. Where do the ABA get their data? From traditional publishers. They are the mother.
     Therefore, it is more accurate to say that ebooks account for 30% of the sales for traditional publishers.
     In contrast, in October 2011 Jeff Bezos stood before a graph that showed that Amazon sold as many eBooks as DTBs. That is, 50% of their sales BY UNIT were ebooks. DTBs tend to be priced higher than ebooks, so no correlation to revenues can be made.

     Now I have new questions. Is the 30% that the ABA reported by unit? That is, do ebooks account for three of ten books sold? Or do ebooks account for 30% of traditional publishers' gross revenues?  Or 30% of profits? Given traditional publishing's peculiar accounting practices, how much faith can I have in the accuracy of their data? That is, do their data reflect reality?
     I don't know. I doubt they know.

     What is the truth?
     The truth is that in 2011 Amazon was selling as many ebooks as DTBs. You can make your own projections from there to here and to the future. I have.
    
     Here is another truth. Over the last two years I bought 11 DTBs. During that same period I bought more than 300 ebooks.

     YMMV, but if it does I pity you.

eBook Review: The Forgotten Man

Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man

Product Details

• File Size: 1134 KB
• Print Length: 498 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000ROKXXI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars (474 customer reviews)
• Price: $9.78

1. Short review:  (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: The premise. The alternate view of the Roosevelt administration.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? A thought-provoking walk-in-the-park.
Worth the money. 

2.2. What I did not like: Ms Shlaes did not prove her premise. If she did, the proof was so oblique as to escape me.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: History buffs.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? No profanity, no sex, and no violence. If you think your child is head over heals for a chronicle of the Great Depression, have at it.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Maybe.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     There is a plot, which is odd for a chronicle. There is even a hero: Wendell Wilkey.
     Ms Shlaes begins her chronicle with the tale of The Forgotten Man. Briefly, Mr A and Mr B enjoy the good life. They note that Mr C does not. A and B undertake to improve C's lot. In de Tocqueville's America, A and B chartered a benevolent association to accomplish this purpose. In Roosevelt's America, A and B lobby Congress, pass a law to create a bureau, and tax the citizenry to pay for C's uplift. The forgotten man in this scenario is Mr X, who never heard of Mr C but now finds himself taxed for C's improvement whether he desires C's betterment or not. Somehow the story got twisted and interpreted to make C the forgotten man.
     Ms Shlaes started with The Forgotten Man as her thesis; that is, that men changed from acting on their own to improve the lot of others to co-opting the coercive power of gov't to 'do good' as they defined good. She quickly abandoned her thesis. Instead, she chronicled the machinations of the Roosevelt administration. Wendell Wilkey figured large in much of the book because of his battles with the TVA.

 2.7. Other:

     I enjoyed reading Ms Shlaes's account of the Schechter case. I read the US Supreme Court's decision in law school. The writing in the decision was clear and coherent but dry. I never thought of the Schecters as anything more than appellants. Ms Shlaes put flesh on them and made them people to me.
    
     This is a book about lies.
     The Forgotten Man is the first chronicle I have read that does not take a laudatory view of the Roosevelt administration. In brief, Ms Shlaes says, "You have been lied to. The Roosevelt years were not all sunshine and cotton candy. There was a dark side, and it was inherent to the philosophy of the reformers."
     I did not witness the Great Depression. Neither did Ms Shlaes. She had to research the history, which means she had to rely on what others reported. She used secondary sources, but she also used primary sources -- contemporary news accounts and public records. She chose accounts according to her bias, but so does every historian.
     The Forgotten Man has garnered 474 reviews, including 55 one-star reviews. I read many of the one-star reviews. None of them suggests that The Forgotten Man is poorly written. Instead they say Ms Shlaes's conclusions are wrong. For having the temerity to disagree with their notions of history they gave the book one star reviews.
     Let's take the first one-star review by W. Kaiser. The review has 28 comments, comprised of denunciations of the review and Kaiser's defense.
     The review announces its stand in the title: Amateur History by a Politico. The first line reads "Shlaes is not an historian." At this point, my thought was "So fycking what? Theodore Roosevelt was not an historian, but he wrote the best history of naval engagements in the War of 1812." Two sentences later W. Kaiser writes "I have a PhD in interwar American literature and culture." The implication is that Shlaes is not qualified to write history but Kaiser is.
     I disagree. Strongly. Vehemently. Violently.
     I have a degree in History. I know many men and women with PhDs in History. I have never heard of a 'PhD in interwar American literature and culture'. A Google search for the expression returns only one item, the review in question. I readily acknowledge that one could write a dissertation on the subject, but I do not think one would submit that dissertation to the Department of Interwar American Literature and Culture.
     Anyway, my dealings with historians led me to the conclusion that some are the most educated and reasonable people in my acquaintance and others are over-credentialed ignoramuses.
     One professor of history at my undergraduate school showed me a monograph he had published in, I believe, the Journal of American History. His monograph posed the question, "Why was Cornwallis at Yorktown?" The answer: Cornwallis had discovered that the only gunpowder mill in the colonies lay at the first fall line on the James River. Yorktown lay at the mouth of the James River. Cornwallis was at Yorktown in order to receive supplies by sea before marching up the river to destroy the mill.
     I thought it was brilliant. It taught me that history differed from chronicle. Chronicle is "This happened, then this happened, then this happened." History is "This is why this happened."
    I had another history professor whose ignorance rankled me. He taught a course on war. A number of Vietnam vets signed up for the course. After a couple of weeks, they all dropped out. I should have taken my cue then and left. An example of the prof's inexcusable ignorance: He stated that a Brown Bess musket took three to four minutes to reload. Long rifles of the Revolutionary period took two to three minutes to reload. The British manual of arms stated that a trained musketeer should be able to fire five rounds a minute. In practice, green companies got off two volleys a minute; veteran companies, three a minute; crack companies, four a minute. But my prof had a PhD, so in the cocktail-hour circuit his views carried more weight than mine in spite of the fact that his ignorance of his subject matter was criminal. He was a fraud, pretending to knowledge that he did not possess.
    Here is a demonstration of how fast one can load and fire a Brow Bess musket:

    Three rounds in 46 seconds. Only an ignoramus who could not be bothered to validate his assumptions would state that the musket of the 18th century took three or four minutes to load.
     I attended a convention of historians and heard one 'professional historian' criticize Julius Caesar because his Roman army had no general staff. I pointed out that his criticism was anachronistic. The general staff was created by the Prussians in 1866. Did that mean that the functions the general staff performed did not get done until 1866? No, but before 1866 the general staff was called by other names, most commonly a Council of War.
     As for Kaiser's accusation that Shlaes follows discredited theories, what nonsense. Discredited by whom? By Kaiser and Kaiser's kin? Roosevelt's History of the Naval War of 1812 was condemned by British historians. Does that mean TR's history should be ignored?
     Shlaes has her say. She is swimming against the tide of Roosevelt hagiographies. The fact that she wrote a counter current is all the more reason to read The Forgotten Man.

     History is about lies.
     Shakespeare's history play Richard III is a lie, but it is a popular lie. The Russian history of the Great Fatherland War (World War 2) says that the Japanese capitulated from fear of the Soviet Army after the USSR declared war 8 August 1945. No mention of the two atomic bombs the USAAF dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japanese history makes no mention of the Rape of Nanking and World War 2 is reduced to the USAAF dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Emperor announcing the surrender on the radio. No mention of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
     Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay fought a war of extermination against Paraguay. I have read histories from both sides. Do you think they agree on the causes of the war? Do you think they agree on who were the heroes and who were the villains?
     What do you think British historians say about the American War of Independence? What do French historians say about it?
     I can tell you with certainty that the Mexican account of the Texas war is diametrically opposed to the history I was taught in school.
     Historians lie to you. Some lie from ignorance, and that is inexcusable. Most lie from bias. That I can live with. For balance, I just read an historian with the opposite bias. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.
     Amity Shlaes wrote a biased book. So have others. I can live with that.
    
     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Amity Shlaes

2.9. Buy the book: The Forgotten Man

Movie Review: Oblivion

Oblivion

1. Short review: 

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The cinematography. The acting.

2.2. What I did not like: The story -- I copped to the plot a quarter of the way in. The poster above -- the poster makes Oblivion look like a The Book of Eli wannabe.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: SF fans. 

2.4. Is the movie appropriate for children to see? Yes.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? No.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:
-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more. <-- Oblivion
-- Worth first-run theater price once.
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. 

Running time: 124 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot in a nutshell:

     Click the link above for the plot.
     This movie comes complete with its own telegraph. When the camera framed a Scav for the first time, I knew at that instant that things were not as Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) reported. I even foresaw the happy reunion at the end. 

2.7. Other:

     I saw this on VOD. I found it worth the price I paid. I am glad that I did not pay first-run theater ticket prices.
     The movie starts with a data dump that I found annoying. The purpose of the dump is to give the history of events that brought the world to its current state.
     The cinematography was strong. The acting was strong. Those two things make the movie, 'cause I wrote better stories when I was twelve.
     “Oblivion” is first and foremost a visual experience, a movie to be seen rather than a puzzle to be deciphered, its chief pleasures are essentially spoiler-proof. -- Justin Chang, Variety

     The movie grossed $285 million worldwide. Would it have made that money without Cruise? I don't think so.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links:
IMDb review
Rotten Tomatoes review