Posted by Ryan
November 18, 2008
“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book I’m interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.
– What is Outliers about?
I’ve been waiting for this book, Outliers, to come out for, well, as long as I’ve known about it. I don’t know how long that is, but it’s felt like a long time.
It finally came out today.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
- On Audible
- On Amazon
I bought it in both audio and paperback. If you like audiobooks at all I highly recommend the audio versions. He reads them himself and does a fantastic job.
Posted by Ryan
November 3, 2008
I’m currently listening to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a fascinating book. I love it.
In the book he mentions some studies that suggest that the more social an animal, the bigger its brains are. I’m sure I’m greatly oversimplifying, but basically the size of our neocortex is directly related to how many people with which we can maintain a stable social relationship. This number is about 148.2. You may have heard of Rule of 150. Many social groups and even colonies have used 150 or numbers close to it for years because they recognize that when a group of people gets bigger than 150 you end up with groups within the group and it gets really difficult to maintain cohesion. If you’d like to verify these facts, read the book as I don’t intend to put references here.
Anyway, as I listened to that portion of the book I couldn’t help but wonder that with all our social networks (facebook, myspace, linkedin, twitter, friendfeed, etc.) if the human race will evolve huge heads a few thousand or million years in the future. Or maybe even next week! I have 380 or so friends on Facebook alone. If I tried to have a stable social relationship with all of them, I would fail, but what if my neocortex grew and I succeeded? I’d have a huge head and look funny. Forget about balance, especially if I had to wear a motorcycle helmet. It’d be hard to even find a motorcycle helmet that big. That would be tragic (about the big head, not about the motorcycle helmet).
I like our heads the size they are. If you do too and want your great great great great great great great great grand children to have good sized heads I suggest you cut back on your facebook friends.
P.S. I’m glad we’re on this end of the evolutionary scale. Nevermind the fact that I don’t believe in that whole evolution thing.
Posted by Ryan
July 4, 2008
I love Independence Day. No, not the movie. Today, the 4th of July. I figured today would be a good day to listen to a portion of John Adam’s biography by David McCullough. I didn’t listen to any specific part of it. I listened to the abridged version years ago and for the past few months have been listening to the 30 hour unabridged version, while also trying to listen to podcasts and other audiobooks.
I have no profound thoughts from listening to it today, though I did gain an heightened sense of appreciation for what is enjoyed here in the United States of America. I highly suggest everyone either read or listen* to the John Adam’s biography. I also suggest reading at least the first and last parts of our Declaration of Independence.
* You can get the abridged version for $7.49. And no, I don’t get any affiliate benefits of any kind from anyone buying anything linked in this post.
