A Robot Reading List

The FBI has a reading list for all things robots and unmanned vehicles.  PW Singer's book Wired for War, which I purchased a few weeks ago, is on the list.  It is sitting on the shelf waiting to be read.  I think we are at the cusp of what we'll look back and call a robotic revolution.   But whatever you want to call it, I believe we'll see amazing advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics in the next 5-10 years.  Should be interesting.  And definitely, if anything, a great place to start working in and learning more about.

Here's the list.  

Do You Use Letterhead?

Letterhead of the late Theodore Geisel, known to the world as Dr. Seuss.  More great letterheads here at letterheady.com

A Man of the Corps

Imagine if you can, watching a naval battle while sitting in a small boat, furiously sketching and recording everything you see with pencil and paper.  Simply an observer, nothing more.  Your observation of one country's amphibious landing craft, with later modifications and effort, will become a Higgins boat, a small landing craft that Ike said helped win the war for the allies during WWII.  Or imagine you developed new tactics, never before used, for what was in the 1950s a new weapon in war -- the helicopter.  And finally, imagine defending and saving not only your livelihood, but a cultural institution -- the United States Marine Corps -- against hostile historic heavyweights -- army officers that helped shape the course of US history yet didn't believe the Corps should still exist.  Lieutenant General Victor Krulak did all that and more in his long and amazing life.  

DaVinci's Helicopter (from notebooks)

I finished Robert Coram's outstanding biography on Victor Krulak about a week ago.  I put the book down and I intended to do a blog post immediately following the last page.  But I had to think about the man before I wrote anything.  I even considered making a short pilgremage to his grave site, located here in San Diego.  Soon after finishing the book I wrote a retired senior naval officer, whom I regularly correspond with, and said that Krulak was, if I recall, "an amazing Marine -- but a questionable father."  Something to that effect.  I say that only to tell you reader, of my immediate opinion of the man, in so few words.  And after a week of thinking about the man my opinion hasn't changed.  

I could spend paragraphs retelling his story.  Telling you how much Robert Coram fairly captured Krulak's success and shortcomings.  I'd say read it for yourself.  If you want to know anything about the Marine Corps, particularly one of the more interesting personalities in its history, read this book.  Besides Chesty Puller, I can't think of another single Marine that has changed or influenced the Marine Corps as much in its entire history.  

What I did think about while reading it, was how Krulak rose to such heights.  And how, if at all, his story might apply to officers today. 

Two things stand out about him after reading the book:

1.  He saw opportunities and aggressively pursued them.  In many instances arguing or demonstrating his case/opinion in front of officers many years senior to him in age and rank.  

2. And second,  closely tied with my first point, he found mentors in very senior officers (most notably General Holland "Howlin' Mad" Smith) that pushed him and help endorse his ideas and career.

Higgins Boat

Could he have risen to historic heights without -- what Coram quotes -- a "Sea Daddy"?  Can any officer do so today?  Namely, does pure merit and no mentor make you invisible?  It stands to reason that if you show promise, someone senior will see it and (hopefully) cultivate your talent.  A good survey would be to ask flag/general officers today if/how senior officers changed their lives or possibly enhanced their career.  I'm not saying military officers should not have mentors, or even that mentors of senior (general officer/flag officer) rank should not influence subordinates' careers.  What I am saying, or rather asking, is that if we live and work in a military organization that honors and rewards these types of relationships, what does that mean -- and what needs to be said to junior officers?

Roger Ebert RIP

Film critic Roger Ebert died today at the age of 70.  

I never read any of his movie reviews or his books.  I've always stayed away from music and movie reviews.  Not because I didn't think the writing wasn't any good.  No, no.  I'd just rather not be influenced either way before listening to a CD or seeing a film.  But that's hypocritical of me, because I do read book reviews before reading a book.   

What's sad, I think, is sometimes it takes an authors/writers death and the following media attention to draw attention to their work.  Not to devalue his writing (he won a Pulitzer), because he did have a strong following, especially after his cancer diagnosis and losing his ability to speak.  His perseverance is inspiring.  But I'd bet his books are going to sell well the next week or two.  As people who didn't read him before will want to know why this man's death was covered by so many media outlets.   They'll want to know what made him a great movie critic.   


UPDATE: A lot is being written about Ebert and his writing.  Here are some great excerpts from the Atlantic on what "Roger Ebert knew about writing."

I Spy A Reading List

A CIA Reading List?  Yep, there is one.   You'll find it here.  I have read one or two of these books.  Time to look at the others.

Working the Wood

Earlier this week during a recent outing, I convinced my wife to let me stop at our local Barnes and Noble Bookstore.  However, I no longer purchase books at Barnes and Noble.  They are simply too expensive.  You can purchase the same book from Amazon, in some cases, for 35-40% less than you can at the bookstore.   There is something that I do enjoy about the bookstore: browsing. Electronic browsing is not the same as walking the aisles and looking at book covers, picking the book up, flipping through the pages and reading a paragraph or two to see if the writing strikes you.  Amazon can't offer that.  So during a short browsing session (the wife sets time limits) I made my way over to the "new releases" and saw a small book with an interesting title, called, The Lost Carving: A Journey To The Heart Of Making by David Esterly.  I picked it up, read a few sentences, and knew I had to order it.  It arrived two days later in the mail.  

I admit, I do enjoy books that I would classify as the artist's memoir.  Books that discuss an artist's process of work -- the challenges, trials, and small joys when working on their art.  Recent reads that I would fit into this category, but well worth your time, would be Robert Crawford's Shopclass as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, and Martin Gayford's Man With the Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud.  In a world described full of "knowledge work," it is refreshing to see artisans creating physical things -- creating things with their hands -- wether it is painting portraits, fixing motorcycles, or in Mr. Esterly's case, carving beautiful designs out of limewood.  

Grinling Gibbons

Mr. Esterly was warned early on that "carving is starving," but after seeing a magnificent carving by the famed 17th century carver Grinling Gibbons (sounds like a Dickens character) many years ago, he knew what he wanted to do with his life.  He wanted to be a carver.  

The book largely deals with his time working on replacing a burned Gibbons carving in the Hampton Court Palace in England.  Woven between this story is his meditations on working the wood, the joy he's had carving wood through the years, the challenges of learning and imitating the great work of a 17th century master, and also the politics and personalities involved with recreating a piece of art for an English historical landmark.

I enjoyed the book.  However, Mr. Esterly sometimes does what I believe many artists do when trying to tell you how much their art has shaped their life.  He overuses simile or metaphor to describe every feeling or impression he has; or in some cases his descriptions simply don't ring true to the ear.  In two places, if I remember correctly, he uses the word "marinate" to describe a thought process.  I stopped at that sentence wishing I had a pencil in hand to scribble "????" next to it in the margins.  But these, and a few other sentences and phrases are small complaints in an otherwise excellent rumination on working with wood and creating exquisite art in the process.

Grinling Gibbon's Stoning of St Stephen

On Books

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

-- Thomas Jefferson