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Book reviews for "Moody,_Fred" sorted by average review score:

On Bobwhites (W.L. Moody, Jr., Natural History Series, No 27)
Published in Hardcover by Texas A&M University Press (2000)
Author: Fred S. Guthery
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A valuable asset to quail hunters and managers
The book covers a variety of topics relating to bobwhites. Dr. Guthery does an excellent job of showing that many of the myths proposed about bobwhites are not backed up by any facts. The writing is not at a technical level, so the book is easily read and understood by a variety of audiences. A must for any quail enthusiest!

A must read for everyone interested in quail!
Wildlife managers, landowners, hunters and anyone else interested in ensuring bobwhites thrive on their property will find Dr. Fred Guthery's newest book, On Bobwhites, an invaluable resource.

The man known as "Mr. Bobwhite" has all the bases covered in his latest publishing endeavor. On Bobwhites provides a wealth of information in a single volume. If you could only have one book on the bobwhite quail, this should be that book. It is extremely well organized into four sections containing 55 short chapters, making it easy to check the table of contents and find reference to most any question on quail.

Most complete reference book on bobwhites! Period.
Wildlife managers, landowners, hunters and anyone else interested in ensuring bobwhites thrive on their property will find Dr. Fred Guthery's newest book, On Bobwhites, an invaluable resource.

The man known as "Mr. Bobwhite" has all the bases covered in his latest publishing endeavor. On Bobwhites provides a wealth of information in a single volume. If you could only have one book on the bobwhite quail, this should be that book. It is extremely well organized into four sections containing 55 short chapters, making it easy to check the table of contents and find reference to most any question on quail.


Fighting Chance: An NFL Season With the Seattle Seahawks
Published in Paperback by Sasquatch Books (1989)
Author: Fred Moody
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This is a true behind the scenes look at an NFL team
I have read and reread this book countless times over the years and it never fails to educate me about the harsh and cruel life of an NFL player or coach.
Fred Moody did an outstanding job of capturing EVERYTHING that an NFL team has to deal with during a season (and this was a very extraordinary season).
It also harkens back to a time when NFL football was revered in the Northwest, now it is just a lame excuse.


I Sing the Body Electronic : A Year With Microsoft on the Multimedia Frontier
Published in Hardcover by DIANE Publishing Co (01 January, 1995)
Author: Fred Moody
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Required reading for my class on product development
In the past I always assigned "Soul of a New Machine" to show my students what it's really like to work in a small project team with unrealistic deadlines (i.e. normal high tech). But the technology there is too out of date - 4.77Mhz, single boards for single functions, etc. So I have shifted to "I Sing," with generally good results. The book is 2x the length I would like so I assign selected chapters, but it reads easily enough that most students read the whole thing. They are always amazed by the level of chaos and conflict; in fact it makes them feel better about their own team design projects. The sequence of events is not easy to follow, there are too many characters, etc. so I provide some supplemental information on my web page. This is the best book I know of for a class on high tech development culture. There are plenty of case studies of the auto industry, but most of them are puff pieces and they are all about giant projects. Ditto for books about Boeing. The e-commerce stories are polluted by money and novelty issues (though I keep hoping to find one.)

Rare first-hand account of a doomed software product
The real value in this book is the great work that Fred did to get inside the development team, and then observe. I've worked at R&D in Microsoft for long enough to know that he probably is telling it largely as it happened. I didn't work on this project but I got pretty damned close.

Yep, it sometimes is that chaotic. It's interesting to see in the book how Fred doubts himself, and says things like "maybe I'm going crazy, but it seems like these people just had another useful offsite, but they all think it went great." Fred, you ain't crazy.

The only drawback of this book is that in places Fred tries to read into situations a bit too much. He steps a little too far out of the observer role a few times, which brings the quality down a bit. Also I think he missed a great opportunity to describe the turn-around (well at least they shipped something) at the end. Maybe he got kicked out around then?

The book has lots of direct quotes and first hand accounts of what went on. Want to see the dark side of things going wrong at Microsoft?? Read this book.

The reality of software development
So many of the books about software development I have read are about an organized, heroic march from conception to delivery. This book is a much more realistic depiction of the chaos and mess that most people actually live with in real world software development. Moody did a good job of just telling the story and not judging the messiness or trying to clean it up to create the typical late night, pizza boxes and Jolt Cola heroic story. He does a good job of discussing the complex human issues surrounding the project and their importance relative to the actually technical issues. Creating the technology turns out to be relatively simple compared to the challenge of getting a group of people from very diverse backgrounds to function effectively as a team. This challenge is particularly strong in consumer technology products because the range of backgrounds required is so broad. The communications and collaboration skills needed to allow artist and programmers to work together are insightfully revealed in this book


The Visionary Position: The Inside Story of the Digital Dreamers Who Are Making Virtual Reality a Reality
Published in Hardcover by Times Books (1999)
Author: Fred Moody
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Worse than "I Sing" by same author
I got both books as a gift when a relative met the author and he suggested that they would make a good birthday present for me (some objective referral).

Both books are horrible, but this one is by far the worst.

I might just cut the spine and cover off this book and glue it to a different one. This way if my relative stops over she sees the title on my bookshelf and think it's not in the dumpster where it belongs.

Digital Greedbags
This book is not badly written - I wouldn't say it's well written by any means but it's not bad. The thing that really galls one about the book are the characters - and unfortunately they're not fictitious. I hit rock bottom with the cast when I read about one "dreamer" who when presented with an opportunity to contribute a technological innovation to oceanographic research responded with the gushing realization that he could "make millions." Not that he might contribute something to humanity - but he might "make millions." It's a little hard to picture people primarily driven by a desire for money as "dreamers." Maybe the book should have been subtitled "The Digital Greedbags who are Hyping VR to Death."

If the point of the book is to lampoon the crass nature of the people in Seattle working on VR, it succeeds admirably. Somehow, however, I don't think that was intended to be the point. Read it only if you have a strong stomach for brainless greed, hype, and outright BS.

Disjoint and superficial
I worked at one of the companies mentioned in the book and worked with or knew several of the characters personally. A co-worker actually turned me onto the book after she recognized my old company's name mentioned. I borrowed it and proceeded to catch up with what happened to these folks for the few years after Worldesign shut down.

While the few facts I can personally relate to are accurate, they do focus a great deal on emotion and bitterness and seem to take one person's accounts as gospel without balance from others. It does state many of the hidden trials of startups.

The writing style is weak. I found the plot disjoint and with too much coverage in some areas, and mostly too little development/depth in others. If I were to have read the book without personal knowledge of the people mentioned, I would have screamed for more character development.

I agree with the other reviewer that this is something you borrow from the library. It was a quick read.


10 Bibliographies of Century
Published in Hardcover by Ardis Publishers (01 January, 1977)
Author: Fred Moody
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Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story
Published in Hardcover by St. Martin's Press (2003)
Author: Fred Moody
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