Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, The Risk and the Reckoning : Book Review

Burton, Katherine Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning (Hardcover). New York: Bloomberg Press, 2007.

Burton, a journalist for Bloomberg news, writes eighteen short profiles of some of the most important hedge fund investors working today including profiles of 13 up and comers picked by the master hedge fund investors themselves. I found the book somewhat informative as someone who is not very familiar with the world of Hedge Funds.

On the down side, many of the profiles were on the superficial side often dealing with the personal style and background of the investors. From the tile I expected that the book would provide more critical analysis but the profiles were short, not particularly pithy and some of her insights were not particularly revelatory. For example that Good Hedge Fund Investors are smart, independent, ambitious and have lots of connections is not exactly news.

In short, this book would appeal to business people who would like an inspiring and not too long read. Unfortunately the title might imply a larger readership.

Donde Esta Rosetta Stone

Perhaps you've been wondering where I've been. For the last few months I've been trying to learn Spanish using our public libraries remote subscription to Rosetta Stone. For the last few weeks I've been trying to "Spanish up" before Rosetta Stone pulls the plug for good on allowing libraries to serve Rosetta Stone to their registered users over the Internet. In our library access ends on October 31st. I suspect they want all those poachers who use Rosetta Stone from their library to pay for the product themselves. I'm not sure how their thinking is going. Do they think that all of a sudden thousands of library users will magically have another $500 to pay for their own copy? I guess they hoped libraries would provide free advertising for them so that more customers will buy their overpriced and over hyped product. Me, I'm hoping that some nice person will buy me Auralog's Tell Me More Spanish Intelligent solution software for Christmas or even better that our library will subscribe to the Tell Me More service.

Steven Colbert Has His Finger On The Pulse Of The Nation

Last week Colbert was "congratulating" students at the University of Florida for standing by and doing nothing while a fellow student was Tasered while attempting to ask John Kerry questions during a speech and predicted that the brave students would fight back by blogging about it. Predictably he reported the next day that some students protested his comments on their blog. And here I am writing about it in my blog. Makes me ashamed to have a blog. Remember action on the streets?(or in the administrators office?) Colbert is right. Now whenever any one feels that rights are being violated they add to the general decline of the national discourse by blogging about it.

Why do I have a blog? Because some in my profession feel that "social softwares" are the greatest doggone thing since sliced bread, so I feel the need to "become familiar" with blogs despite real misgivings about the amateurisation of North American culture. I also have a facebook account although it seems to me that facebook society attempts to mimic all aspects of american adolescent culture except possibly the warmth of human contact. Take Top Friends for example. Why do I want to rate my friends and post their ratings on my page? I already went to junior high, years ago, and I really don't want to go back. Or do I really need to know that according to Facebook, I am considered a social outcast? (ouch!) Also as a Christian I am sometimes put off by some of the *ahem* cruder aspects of Facebook (and anti social aspects as well, to be frank)

This is not to say that libraries should not be interested in social technologies, just that sometimes we get all excited and happy about the cool (and fun!) new technologies and very rarely ever spend the time considering the social consequences that new technologies leave in their wake.

Ballerina Culture

My daughter started ballet lessons last night and she absolutely loved it. Like most of her almost five year old friends she is going through a fairy princess ballerina stage. Barbie actually capitalizes on this trend the best by making movies in which the main characters literally are fairy princess ballerinas. Of course she needed a tutu and all the fixings. The class really was more like pre-ballet but most of the little girls had tutus and slippers. Now I'm not going to be the one to burst her bubble (unless of course she is seventeen and STILL considering ballerina as a career choice) but I don't see my daughter as a ballerina. For one thing she most likely will be far too tall and for another thing, as thin as she is now the tutu made her look like a fullback for the Fighting Irish or at the very least a soccer player for the little miss USA soccer team. In fact whenever she ran "daintily" around the room she really looked like she was barreling across the soccer field. Of course I don't want to hurt her feelings but I also don't want her to get totally involved in ballet and have someone else hurt her feelings down the line. Maybe I'm over thinking this. Hopefully she'll enjoy this for a few years, get sick of it and go onto the next project. I just wonder why it seems that nowadays all little girls get on the "princess" bandwagon and why being a tomboy just is not as acceptable a choice nowadays, especially for little girls little my daughter who are, shall we say, more "athletically built" than dainty.

Donde Esta Mary? (And Exactly How do You Get Accents on an English Keyboard if You Don't Mind my Asking)

Lately it has come to my attention that in order to find a library job I need to participate in some kind of Continuing Education program in order to demonstrate that while I've been out of the work force I have been doing something. (As if watching a hyperactive three year old and his equally active five year old sister isn't doing something) One thing I've been doing in my "spare time" is trying to learn Spanish as many public library systems here in Northern Indiana need Spanish speakers. Lately I've been working on my Spanish not just strictly in my spare time leaving not so very much time for other things like writing my blog. Right now my daughter is in school but my son is looking at me forlornly holding an open bottle of water. It looks like its time for some continuing education in toddler developmental psychology. Buenas Dias!

Get the Mosquitos Outta Here!

As if just having far to many mosquitoes wasn't bad enough, the Indiana Board of Health in Indianapolis has warned residents of of St. Joseph (our county), Elkhart, LaPorte and LaGrange counties in Indiana of a possible outbreak of mosquito borne Eastern Equine Encephalitis. It's the plague I tell you! Note to self, definitely remember to give daughters preschool permission to spray her with bug poison, er repellent.

Unattended Children in the Library

I just finished reading a compilation post on PUBYAC about policies regarding unattended children while their parents are on the Internet. It brought me back to my days as a librarian in an under served area of Brooklyn. Every so often Branch Administration would institute parental supervision policies for the branches to follow. How we would laugh! The idea! Parents bringing their children to the library and watching them! When we got the Internet we did have one or two mothers who would come in for hours with their very small children and leave the children functionally unattended. I'm not sure it ever occurred to us to insist to strongly that the mothers watch the children themselves. After all they came in during the middle of the day when the computers (and we) were most available so really what else did we have to do but read their children some stories. We were just happy that the mothers weren't completely being left on the off ramp of the information superhighway. What were they going to do about finding care for their children anyways, hire a babysitter?(With what?), get dad to chip in? (Where is dad anyhow?), buy their own computer to surf at home? (Be realistic!) . Seriously, when I read this post, and statistics bear this out by the way, it immediately occurred to me that those who rely on computers at the library are generally at high risk of being of being on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. So I'm with the woman who encourages libraries to be proactive to the needs of mothers who are on the Internet at the library. Don't get me wrong. I'm sympathetic to what can happen when children are left unattended for too long, and I can imagine that not all patrons who use library computers and abandon their children while they surf are in the situation that my former patrons were. I have two little kids and they can get into incredible mischief when I turn my back for even two seconds. Once when I was at the library, I was putting our books into our stroller, when my then three year old daughter stuck her arm into the door jamb. Not something I ever anticipated happening. I guess you really do have to be three to think sticking your arm in the door jamb is a good idea. Fortunately I saw her do it and grabbed the door before it closed. Otherwise the story wouldn't be even in the least bit funny. (You have to admit it's kind of funny). If I was on the computers at the library, even for five or ten minutes I know exactly what they would do. They would walk right out of the library onto the busy street smack into the path of a car. That why I don't use the computer at the public library, I use it a home when the kids are distracted by a snack, Dad or best of all bedtime. But that's the advantage of being white and middle class. You get to have little luxuries like a husband that fully supports your family and sometimes gives you free time to "enrich" yourself, as well as your own computer with Internet access. That's why libraries that serve minority patrons should be open and creative in finding ways to serve both their patrons need to use library computers and their children's need for constant supervision.