Reading Skills Essential To Knowledge
Q As the father of a teenager who, in my opinion, spends too little time reading as opposed to programming, I wonder if you would speak to the benefits of gathering information by reading (in all kinds of media) and the benefits of acquiring good reading skills? -Stephen J. Ransford
A. It is pretty unlikely that people will become knowledgeable without being excellent readers. Multimedia systems are beginning to use video and sound to deliver information in compelling ways, but text is one of the best ways to convey details.
I try to make sure I get in an hour or more of reading each weeknight and a few hours each weekend. I read at least one newspaper every day and several magazines each week.
I make it a point to read at least one newsweekly from cover to cover because it broadens my interests. If I read only what intrigues me, such as the science section and a subset of the business section, then I finish the magazine the same person I was before I started. So I read it all.
Q. What books do you enjoy? -A number of readers
A. Biographies and autobiographies interest me because it’s amazing the way some lives develop. For example, it’s fascinating to read Napoleon’s own views of what he did. He had an unusual opportunity at the end of his “career” to reflect at length on all he had done and these reflections make interesting reading.
Business figures such as Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the former chairman of General Motors, intrigue me. His book, “My Years at General Motors,” is one of the best about business.
Sloan dealt with issues such as organizing, measuring progress, dealing with risk and keeping individuals in his organization challenged and productive. He understood his business in a rational way that I find inspiring.
Sloan represented an instance of the best rising to the top, but it doesn’t always work that way. The most talented people don’t necessarily end up in the most critical positions. It always interests me when an organization doesn’t have the right feedback loops to draw out its talent.
I read the most about scientists. The purity of their thinking makes them very attractive. I dreamed of becoming a scientist once, and my hobbies include biotechnology, understanding evolution, the brain and DNA. I also enjoy reading about economics.
My favorite recent fiction book is “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines. My favorite best-seller is “The Shipping News” by E. Annie Proulx.
Q. What kind of computer do you have? -Wei Huang, Seattle
A. My only computer is a 486 laptop, a kind that you buy off the shelf at a computer store. I will probably upgrade to a Pentium laptop when they become more common.
My laptop has 12 megabytes of RAM, an acronym for “randomaccess memory.” It also has a 240-megabyte hard disk, which lets me store about 60,000 times as much information as there is in this newspaper column. This disk is fairly small by today’s standards.
I use a laptop because it is portable. On the road I can connect into Microsoft’s computers from almost any place in the world, using the laptop’s built-in modem.
At home and at the office, the small machine slips into a docking station which connects it to a full-size monitor, keyboard and mouse.
A couple of years ago I started using a high-speed telephone connection, known by the acronym ISDN, to connect to Microsoft’s computers from home. This connection lets me send more than 100,000 bits of information (about four pages of text) per second to and from my laptop.
In the future the high-speed transfer of large amounts of digital data will be very important. At work and at home.
xxxx