Interloper View

I received this as book as part of a Samsung for Kindle offer in February but finally got around to reading it. The book centers around one of the characters from Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger. In the first part of the book the author, Peter David kept criticizing Charles Dickens on the development of Oliver Twist and the focus of the story and how weak Oliver was. It was kind of irritating for the author criticized the very work that he was going to use for the book.   Other than the criticism, the story development was well done; introducing the characters and linking the various characters together. Starting by showing Jack Dawkins by escaping (which explains why he has the nickname Artful Dodger) from his expulsion to Australia. The vampire conspiracy and how it resulted in the two other main characters, the princess and also son of Van Helsing was well done and believable. Once the main story started, transition between the events and also sprinkle of some backgr...

I just finished reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It introduces the theory of thin slices where attention of details performed within a second or two can tell us a lot. One of the examples provided in the book involves a marble known as kouros. The problem was first identified by Federico Zeri, an Italian art historian. He could immediately see that the kouros did not look right but was not able to articulate the problem. The next person was Evelyn Harrison, one of the world's foremost experts on Greek sculpture. In both cases, it sounds like intuition. This was confirmed much later that the kouros is fake. The gift of reading deeply into the narrowest slivers of experience is incredible and is present in many professions. Imagine making quick and accurate decision using this approach and if this is part of what it means to be human, the potential is immense. Our unconscious thought process is more superior when the choices become more complicated (and we have to ju...

While looking for information on "Blink", I came across this website which analyzes a few of the books by the author.  The website is http://www.gladwell.com Discussion on: The Dog Outlier Blink The Tipping point