Nate Shivar

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Hello! Here's my product & book reviews!

Tubes by Andrew Blum Book Review

By Nate Shivar

When I publish this post, the content will zip out of the back of my computer over my head to my wireless router.

From there, my router sends the info over to my modem – which is connected to “The Internet.”

Before I read this book, I knew that much.

I also knew that my website files were on a server somewhere outside of Houston, TX at the HostGator …???…place of some sort.

That’s about it.

I know how to get to Houston via roads – but not via cables.

I could only guess in vague terms what exactly happened between here and Houston – much less what happens when I opened a website in The Philippines or somewhere else in the world.

And that is exactly what Andrew Blum seeks to explain in Tubes – and he does it quite well.

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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami Book Review

By Nate Shivar

As a spectator, watching a running race mainly involves standing around for a while, then watching for a few seconds as runners crest the hill and run by. And that’s that.

On television, watching running is about as almost as gripping as falling asleep to a ceiling fan.

But kudos to the publishers at Vintage International for believing that reading about running could somehow be interesting.

Because writing a book about running is exactly what famed novelist Haruki Murakami has done – and done masterfully well.

The book is in a memoir-ish format and talks about running as a background and constant theme of Murakami’s life as a professional novelist.

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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson Book Review

By Nate Shivar

Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.

That is one of the many, many memorable quotes from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin.

I picked this book up immediately after hearing Elon Musk talk about it (and later finding a whole slew of fans of it). It’s 500 pages – and well worth the read.

I had always had this sort of elementary school version of Ben Franklin in my head like most every American, but I was really blown away by just how ingenious, influential, industrious, and insightful Ben Franklin was.

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Book Review

By Nate Shivar

I grew up about 10 years too late and on the wrong side of the world to fully appreciate Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – but it was a really fun, fresh, and fascinating novel.

The book set in 2030 where everyone spends all their time digitally immersed online to escape the awful dystopia outside.

The economy is dominated by just 2 online firms – and one firm’s eccentric founder dies leaving his fortune to whomever can solve a treasure hunt involving riddles and trivia centered around the 1980s American geek sub-culture.

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Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer Book Review

By Nate Shivar

I’ve never thought of memory as skill until I read Moonwalking With Einstein.

The book is Joshua Foer’s exploration into not only mnemonics, but also the subculture of “memory athletes,” and his adventure in experimental journalism where he goes from covering the US Memory Championships (yes, there is such a thing) to participating in – and winning the following year.

It turns out that memory, like pretty near 100% of human skills, is influenced and developed not by genetics or “talent,” but by deliberate, and consistent practice (a hypothesis repeatedly proven by longitudinal research, dedicated researchers, and explained by this excellent book).

And Joshua Foer proves it with his journey from regular forgetful guy to being able to memorize a full decks of playing cards, dozens of random names and numbers, and lists of hundreds of random words.

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Books Read in 2013

By Nate Shivar

From 2007 to 2012, I read 263+ books. But I did not stop there. I haven’t kept up the same pace – but have kept on tracking every book I’ve read since. Ideally, I’ve also written a short lessons learned or review of each. Here’s the books I’ve read this past year.

*all the links below go to Amazon for convenience, but I definitely recommend purchasing books from Alibris. They support local booksellers, and often have even better used pricing.

This post covers books read in 2013. You can also read from,

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

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The Best Unlikely Sandwich

By Nate Shivar

A few months ago when the New York Times wrote about PB&P sandwiches (yes, as in Peanut Butter and Pickle) – it got quite a bit of attention. The article was the most emailed that day, and made it to the Front Page of Reddit.

Apparently there is a whole cohort of people in America who know about all sorts of unlikely pairings with peanut butter. I had never met any of these sandwich anarchists before (everyone I know is a PB&J die-hard) – and was really skeptical as well of the idea of peanut butter paired with pickles.

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I Drank Kopi Luwak Today

By Nate Shivar

In Southeast Asia, there’s a jungle cat called the Civet that loves to eat coffee cherries.

The civet’s digestive system uses the fruit of the coffee cherry for nourishment – but only partly begins to break down the coffee cherry pit (what we call the “coffee bean”) before pooping it out.

Someone, and I have no idea how this someone got this idea, but someone thought it would be perfectly splendid to pick the undigested coffee beans out of the Civet cat poop, and proceed to process, roast, grind, brew, and serve them just like any other beans you’d buy from your coffee shop.

And I’m not making this up.

In Indonesia – they call it “Kopi Luwak” or “Civet Coffee.”

And it’s one of the most sought after coffees in the world – mainly because of it’s scarcity (you can imagine the hordes of people signing on to harvest it…).

Today – I got to drink some Kopi Luwak. Fresh-brewed in a French Press. Here’s how it all went down (and out).

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One Year of Running In Vibram Fivefingers Bikilas

By Nate Shivar

I started running distance when I was 10 years old, and continued throughout high school. I was never particularly fast, but it was enjoyable and something athletic I could do.

I had shin splints, hurt ankles, and all the rest of runner’s woes – to the point that I slowly tapered off in college.

In 2010 – I had some friends who encouraged me to get back into running and had me read Born To Run by Chris McDougall, followed by Four Hour Body (running chapter).

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What I Learned Reading 263+ Books In 5 Years | Part 1 | 2007

By Nate Shivar

Last week I read a post by Julien Smith called “Lessons I Learned Reading Over 200 Books.” It was really fascinating and well done. I was quite jealous.

But then I realized, “wait, I’ve done that.”

Since January of 2007, I’ve read about 263 books. I say “about” because I was only half keeping track until September 2008 – when I converted to a spreadsheet and really started tracking.

I’ve decided to start reviewing (nearly) every book I read here. And that means getting caught up.

Unlike Julien (who put everything in 1 ridiculously long post), I’m going to split mine up into 6 ridiculously long blog posts (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). I’ll also keep going after this initial push to 2013 and beyond.

2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | Most Recent Full Reviews

I’m just going to write a couple sentences for each – and only what I remember about the book, and a short bit of review.

Here we go…

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Why Free Software Should Be Very Suspicious

By Nate Shivar

Shopping for invoicing software.

Now that I have your full and rabid attention, here’s why you should not trust free software by default.

The Quick Story

After 6 months of ignoring my invoicing system, and working with a duct-taped system of PayPal and Google Docs templates – I was tired of looking a bit unprofessional and feeling disorganized.

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