Review: No One Would Listen

I realize I'm way behind on reviewing this book, seeing as it was released way back in March.  But I figure I'll post some thoughts about it anyway, just in case anyone out there is still debating whether or not to pick this one up.  Nevertheless, No One Would Listen, by Harry Markopolos, tells the story of Harry's nearly decade-long investigation of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

Kindle for Android

I first heard about the book when Harry appeared on The Daily Show on March 8, 2010.  His passion and frustration regarding the entire debacle was enticing, and I purchased the Kindle version as soon as I saw the show.  I figured it would be an opportunity to try to reformat Amazon's eBook to something I could read on my Palm Pre.  After futzing around with it for a week, unfortunately, I couldn't get the page breaks to transfer right and I just got one GIANT block of text on my phone.  But when I switched to the Evo, Kindle for Android (use a barcode scanner on your phone to scan the QR code at right to find it on the Android Market) was available so I began reading NOWL shortly thereafter.  This was my first experience reading a book on Kindle for my phone, and it was a very pleasant experience.  I'll write more about my experiences using the Kindle for Android software versus the latest generation Kindle device versus reading an old-fashioned hardcover after I receive my Kindle at the end of the week.

But I digress -- back to NOWL.  After the first few chapters you get a real feel for the type of person Harry Markopolos is.  He's a stand-up guy, ready to fight the good fight, which is nice to see after seeing so much of the ugliness that Wall Street has shown us in recent years.  Harry is also a quant -- a math geek.  I'm by no means a quant, but I've always excelled in math and science and I appreciate what we have to learn from such disciplines.  I sometimes wonder if I'd have ended up in the financial industry if I hadn't pursued engineering and then gone to medical school.  Either way, as a fellow nerd, I sympathize with a lot of what Harry went through.

Kindle on the way (I hope)

I ordered one of the new Kindles a few weeks ago when the new design was announced (unfortunately, not early enough, as I didn't get in on the first shipment) and I should be receiving it some time this week or next week.  After having just finished No One Would Listen using the Kindle for Android software on my new HTC Evo 4G, I'm looking forward to trying out the actual Kindle device. 

Amazon seems to have finally made a useful eBook device that's actually attractive to look at.  I've been interested in the Kindle since the first generation was originally launched, but the price point and aesthetics never agreed with me.  I'd been anxiously waiting for them to bring the Kindle software to WebOS, but when I made the switch to Android, I figured I'd give the software a shot on my phone.  The convenience is incredible, and it's nice to save $5+ on each book you order without having to kill any trees (we do, after all, only have one Earth).  I'm in the process of reading A Game of Thrones right now, and I'm hooked.

I'll post an update when I receive my Kindle (I'm hoping by this Friday, but we'll see).  I strongly recommend you check out No One Would Listen in the meantime.  It's absolutely mind-boggling how much Harry Markopolos went through while trying to expose Bernie Madoff. You know how it ends, but it's still a very addicting read.  I'll try to post more about it another time.

"But they were atheists, so they didn't care..."

Something rather disturbing happened at a party I was at the other night.  You may have heard about this story, where a wedding party's bus was hit by an SUV and a member of the wedding party was killed.  I was out of town at the time, so I never heard anything about it.  When someone at the party was telling me about it, she said something along the lines of the wedding couple being atheists, so they just had the wedding at the hospital after the death of their friend.

I'm sorry, but how the hell does the couple's religion (or lack thereof) have anything to do with that?  Realistically, it's not like postponing the wedding would erase the memory of what happened or make the ceremony any less sad than it was bound to be by that point.  It's a tragic event, no doubt, and it's not the wedding memory that anyone wants to have.  Whether the couple wants that memory to be of their actual wedding day or of the day they had originally planned to get married is completely up to them, and has nothing to do with their religious beliefs.

Back to the Trenches

After a chronologically long but subjectively short summer, I'll be starting up with classes again on Monday.  Supposedly, 2nd year is when medical students start to learn stuff that is actually somewhat useful and applicable to patient care. I'm looking forward to that, as one year filled with memorizing microbial virulence factors and biochemical pathways was uninspiring enough already.  It should be fun!

I'm still in the process of catching up on what's been going on for the past few months in the US regarding science, medicine, politics, and everything else.  After being cut off from current events while I was in China for 4 weeks, I immediately went to work on the east coast for the remainder of the summer, where I didn't really have time to keep up with the news.  But now that classes are starting up again, I'll be more motivated to post about the news and whatever else is on my mind.  As I dig through the archives of my favorite news sites and podcasts, I may or may not be posting about stuff that happened weeks or months ago, so I apologize in advance for being late to the game!

Food at the Indiana State Fair

So now that I'm back home, I was planning on writing a wonderful post about the food that can be found at the Indiana State Fair.  But it turns out that Aaron Carroll has already done so.  You're welcome.