Man On Wire

Wow, I can see why this was nominated for an Oscar in 2008. Beautiful film, and capturing the Mission-Impossible-like caper was done extremely well.

Donburiya

Pretty inexpensive, fast, and good Japanese food. A little hard to get to, given that it's in between two subway stops. But worth a visit: there's a little cluster of Japanese groceries/delis/restaurants here.

The Man Who Killed His Brother

Good plane-ride fare, although I read this mostly in the airport. Typical Donaldson intensity; worth reading if you like intense mysteries.

The Prisoner

Well, this post is really about Patrick McGoohan, who created and starred in The Prisoner. He passed away last week, which was sad. Cult classic that is a must-watch!

Niko's

We ventured up to the Upper West Side for a few hours and had dinner at this Greek restaurant. Really good food, and a lot of it, with a nice ambiance and at pretty reasonable prices. Definitely worth going to!

The Wire: Season 5

We finished watching the final season of HBO's fantastic series "The Wire". Outstanding storytelling, incisive social commentary, depressing morality play: it has it all. I used to think that Battlestar Galactica was the best TV I've ever seen, but The Wire is better. If you read my blog, you must watch this series!

The Man Who Tried to Get Away

I quickly read this mystery novel by one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors, Stephen R. Donaldson. He's best known for his books about Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I like his writing, although it's intensely psychological and deals with extremely screwed-up protagonists: but protagonists who find their strengths in their faults.

Nudge

This book, about how choices should be "architected" because of how people behave like humans and not economic engines, is interesting. Too bad too much of the book is devoted to justifying the authors' philosophy (which they call "libertarian paternalism"). Otherwise, it's a decent book in the constellation of books that talk about the intersection of psychology and economics.

The Essential Difference

This book by Simon Baron-Cohen (yes, he is the brother of Sasha Baron-Cohen!) talks about a lot of research that examines the differences between men and women. Simplistically, he characterizes men as (on average) better at systemizing, and women as better at empathy. Highly believable, and he quotes a lot of relevant research. Interesting...

Body Language

This book was an interesting read, and I wish I had read it earlier in my life. Oh well! It tells you how to interpret/understand your own body's and other people's bodies' signals.

First, Break All The Rules

This book is a fascinating compilation of the lessons learned by Gallup when they interviewed great managers. If I were to characterize the lessons implied by its 12 employee concerns, they are: treat everyone as individuals.

Read the book if you're a manager. It's extremely good.

The Lucifer Effect

The Lucifer Effect is a compelling story about The Stanford Prison Experiment, as well as how its conclusions relate to what happened at Abu Gharib. Scary stuff.

Watch the clip of Zimbardo's interview with Stephen Colbert. Entertaining, if sort of beside the point of the book.

The Last Lecture

This book, written by computer scientist Randy Pausch after his "last lecture" (which he gave after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer), has some common-sense advice for living one's life. A bit overrated, though; it wasn't as moving as I thought as it would be. It was illuminating, and mildly thought-provoking, but a little too self-absorbed (unsurprisingly).

Food

Nicholas Kristof's article in the NY Times pointed me at this petition. I signed it, as I tend to trust Kristof and Michael Pollan's judgment.

Tropic Thunder

I needed a funny movie, and Netflix obliged by sending me this funny spoof. Great cast, decent writing, and a semi-predictable plot (with many unpredictable details). Tom Cruise was hilarious as a crass movie mogul!

The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of Money is an interesting book, although pretty flawed as a general piece of non-fiction. It covers rather quickly the evolution of four underpinnings of modern finance: the bond market, the stock market, insurance, and the real estate market. Niall Ferguson brings up rather interesting (and relevant) historical warnings that show that today's financial meltdown should not really have been unexpected. However, the book is not written for a layperson: Prof. Ferguson tosses around lots of financial jargon without much explanation. The Economist's review is pretty apt. Still, I found it to be a mildly entertaining read, and it complemented the book A Splendid Exchange well (although Bernstein's book is better).

The Norman Conquests

I read the entire trilogy of plays, The Norman Conquests, by Alan Ayckbourn. (That reminds me of an episode of The Family Guy I saw recently, where the family goes to London and watches an incomprehensible play.) After we saw the first play on Broadway, I decided I wanted to read the whole trilogy. Very funny, although I think I would appreciate it even more to see it performed: I kept envisioning the actors we saw in their roles.

Novita

We ate dinner at this relatively high-end Italian restaurant: it was very good food, although pricey. It's really hard to judge whether food is worth the money: overall, I'd say that it was, but that I wouldn't eat at the restaurant frequently. For special occasions, the food was worth it.

The Sexual Paradox

Susan Pinker's book is fascinating: it is about what she has seen as the differences between men and women in her practice as a psychologist, a lot of related research, and some interviews with various men and women. The book is sprinkled with a little too much non-quantitative data, but the interviews are interesting. The basic question of that the author tries to answer is: is it possible to have equality of measured outcomes with respect to male/female balance in workplaces, or do differences between the ways that men and women make choices inherently lead to different measured outcomes? Her answer is the latter: that men and women are biologically different, and when given choices, will make different ones that will lead to different outcomes.

Tosca

We were inspired to watch Tosca after seeing Quantum of Solace. Netflix only had this production on DVD, which was pretty good. Jose Cura was really good as Mario; the rest of the cast was OK.