Never too busy to read a book. 5 this month.

January 14th, 2010

I’ve been too busy to write on the blog of late. With launches of the new blogvani and codebix.com and work to do on astrobix.com I couldn’t get any time for the blog.

All I’ve been writing of late are book reviews anyhow. So just to keep the record straight and lest you think I haven’t been reading any book, here’s a list of book’s I’ve read while I was away minding my own business the last month.

1. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins – Awesome book if you are interested in learning how the brain works on a scientific level. I am enthused by Jeff’s drive to develop true AI. The book also gave me really beautiful insight into what intelligence really is and how the classic Turing’s test is so unequipped to define machine intelligence.

This is definitely a recommended book for you if you have a natural, in-born interest for all things science.

2. Microtrends by Mark Penn – Well, this book was overhyped. I’ve read better books on the topic. Maybe if I hadn’t read them earlier I’d be impressed. I found it very similar to books like Freakonomics, Tipping Point, et al.

3. Superfreakonomics – You’d think that an awesome book like Freakonomics would spawn an acceptable sequel, but nah. Superfreakonomics begins with that classic American insult they have created for the rest of the world. First it was the Japanese, then Chinese and now it’s the Indians who have small penises. Yeah, that’s the result of all that awesome ‘economics’ research done by the guys who wrote Superfreakonomics. I’ve quickly forgotten the authors’ name, but I imagine they would be a bunch of ol’ American Yanks who think Texas is the dominant country on the planet. Yah!

4. Revolt in 2010 & Methuselah’s Children – That’s one book not two. But actually they are two novellas bunched together. The stories are quite different even though the events are connected. I guess this is the beginning of R A Heinlein’s Future History series which is so loved. It’s good.

5. Time Enough for Love – Again by R A Heinlein. I am still reading it.

Hmm… Are they all? Well, these are all the new books I’ve read. I re-read some of the old ones while I was waiting for the new books to be delivered.

The next book I have waiting in line is Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin Toeffler. I read Future Shock and The Third Wave from him earlier and was much impressed. This ought to be good. And yeah, coming in some days is The Door Into The Summer by R A Heinlein.

Wow. Good reading.

Feedback on Book: Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A Heinlein

November 16th, 2009

9781416520931 Farnham’s Freehold from Robert A Heinlein has upset me a little. Robert Heinlein finds it very hard to be uncontroversial I guess. He apparently wrote every book with a mission to show a different and not necessarily beautiful facet of this world.

It says on the cover of this book that it is science-fiction’s ‘Most controversial novel’. Most controversial? I don’t think it deserves that title, there have been others with more dangerous themes. But it certainly would have been very controversial in the 60s when it was written. But I think it was controversial for all the wrong reasons.

Back in the 60s when the black people of America had only just gained a better standing in the society, a novel like Farnham’s Freehold which turns racism head-over-heels would certainly cause a ruckus. After all which white person could come to terms with a society of black rulers who have mindless white slaves who they consider animals and have doctors called ‘vets’ to treat them. Heinlein’s concoction was a slap on the face to white-supremacists. It was a mirror of the most ugly sorts showing them what they were by exaggerating the treatment they mete out to blacks, only this time the recipients were white.

So it was controversial and it had more than a few people fuming and damning. But that’s not what got my goose. Living in India and in this millennia, I am a bit immune to color-racism, but living in India there is a different picture of family that I have. I think people totally missed that point. They totally didn’t bring family into picture when they struck up a controversy. The family portrayed in Heinlein’s book is more than dysfunctional, it’s a victim. It’s a victim of an overbearing, ego-maniacal, paranoid father figure who apparently doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the people in the family even though he pretends to think that he does. That guy is also the book’s protagonist.

Only in a Heinlein book can a protagonist be so vile, disgusting, selfish, uncaring, and totally get away with it. I didn’t feel much sympathy for the lead in the novel at all even though Heinlein made an effort to make him seem fair and just in many places. But that’s a useless sort of a complain, because why should anyone expect any lead character of any book to be a moral example?

Leaving the characters be, the most interesting aspect of the book is how it compares the contemporary civilization with a possible future, and how the customs and rituals of the imaginary civilization seem so horrific while our own savage and unfair practices can be easily ignored.

Going back two thousand years we are appalled at the savagery of human civilization. Heinlein makes you appalled at the savagery two thousand years on, while the people in the future of Heinlein’s book are just as appalled at ours.

Book Review: Orphans of the Sky by Robert A Heinlein

November 12th, 2009

orphan I received ‘The Orphans of the Sky’ by R A Heinlein yesterday. The book is pretty small, pocket-book sized. It didn’t take me long to finish it off again. Again because I have read it once earlier a long time ago and didn’t remember the title so I ordered it again.

I am left with a deep sense of dissatisfaction not because the book was not good, but because I could remember the story before it unfolded and by ordering a book that I had already read earlier I missed reading a fresh Heinlein book. But on to the review:

The book is about a giant spaceship that has set sail for a distant star. It’s apparently a slower than light generations ship because too many years have passed. The residents of the ship have forgotten their origins and believe the ship is the entire world. Operating the ship has become a religion and the society has re-structured itself in accordance. The manuals of the ship’s operation are relics of the past, and hardly anybody understands physics anymore.

Adding to the complexities is a bunch of human beings mutated by radiation who’re outcasts from the society and live hiding in the unexplored areas of the ship. The story is about how one man discovers the truth and prods others to accept and take the ship to its destiny. He is not a politician unfortunately and fails in the game of power. He and some of his friends make it to a habitable planet, but most of the other residents of the ship are still ‘making the trip’.

This is an adventure story by Heinlein, but yet again the book reminded me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It’s humorous only in parts, but the character Joe-Jim, a two-headed mutant of the story is quite like ‘Zaphod’ of Hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy. It is easy to see that Douglas Adams did base Zaphod on Joe-Jim. Zaphod has the same disrespect for others and disproportionate sense of self-worth just like Joe-Jim.

Heinlein has been inspiration to too many people. I can be no exception. I am a big fan of Heinlein’s writing style and I guess I’ve consciously or unconsciously used that style in my own writing. But more than that not a long time ago I had begun writing a fresh story that I called ‘Savants All’, which was also about a bunch of people who are trying to make a similar long journey, but they are immortal humans. The story was about their expectations, disappointments, a trip back home, and a war that was on a brink of being lost. I haven’t finished that story yet. But I hope I will one day.

Websites are products in perpetual making

November 5th, 2009

I’ve been developing packaged software for most of my working life, my transition to web was late but it seems permanent because I am enjoying web development like I’ve never enjoyed it before. Thanks in parts to ASP.Net MVC that finally allowed me to take web development seriously.

Coming from the packaged application world, one difference I am enjoying very much is that a website gives a developer much more flexibility than a packaged app does. If I find a bug I can fix it now and all my users are updated immediately. I can take a website online earlier and allow the initial users to beta test it for me, telling me what’s wrong so that I can fix it.

In packaged software once you ship you’re done. At least for a while. Testing is a tougher job, and shipping is even tougher with all those installation issues that crop up. Updating the app is also very difficult and you’ve got to make it opt-in. It’s also costlier. On the Internet users expect to upgrade and flow with the changes but not on the desktop.

As a developer I find the net a more liberating platform because it puts me in control. Of course there’s a heightened security risk to take care of but there’s no piracy!

I’ve found myself working, improving, fixing web applications that I made a year ago, and I can immediately bring the fix online. That way it seems that a website application project seems to have no end in the development cycle. Which is not only fun, but keeps people like me in demand. :)

Do All Programmers End up Being Quirky?

October 30th, 2009

I’ve heard it said by other (older and more experienced programmers) that after a few years a majority of programmers end up becoming quirky in some way or the other. It’s supposed to be a phenomenon of sorts. Today I am at home working on my new project and I am desperately looking for a diary and pen. I just realized that’s my odd programming quirk. I have a compelling need to make a list and write down exactly what my micro-goal is before I can start programming.

Every morning when I get to the office I go to a new page in my notebook, put down the date and make a serialized list of all the programming objectives I want to achieve in the day. Then as I finish each I tick them off. Most days I am not able to finish all the items in the list, but the days I am, I feel high. If I run out in the middle of the day like I did today, I have to note down the fresh item before I can start working on it. Mind you it has to be on a notebook with a pen and not on the computer. I’ve tried to keep lists on the computer and never succeeded.

I guess it must have started as an organizing habit with me trying to set goals for the day. I don’t know when it became a compulsion.

So I ran out of the things I want to do this evening at office and at home I have to look at my project and decide what I want to do next. I find myself hunting for a pen and a notebook and suddenly I realize that it doesn’t make any sense. So I tried to start programming without noting down and I just can’t begin. I can’t decide what I want to work on now. I’ve been meandering around my UI and code for 20 minutes taking out time to check mail and a couple of websites in the middle. And now I am writing this post just so I can put in black-and-white what my compulsion is so that I will know and try to correct it. I will make an attempt later.

Right now I need to find a pen and a notebook so that I can get it down and start working.

Double Book Review: Double Star & Tunnel In The Sky by Robert Heinlein

October 29th, 2009

Are you tired of seeing Robert Heinlein books reviews from me yet? Well, let me apologize now, but it’s not going to stop for quite a while. You see R A Heinelein wrote a lot of books, and I am not quitting until I’ve read the last one.

Not that I haven’t been reading other stuff. I also read half of The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, but I misplaced the copy in my home, and the jungle of books that I have, I can’t find it for the life of me. So I won’t be writing a review until i find the copy.

Meanwhile, here’s a double Heinlein treat for you:

Double Star by Robert Heinlein

double

I’ve said it before that Heinlein does not deal with the science of physics, but rather the science of the society and the person. Double Star deals with the latter. It’s a mind-scan of Lorenzo Smythe, an out of work actor who is hired/coerced to impersonate an out of action political figure.

Lorenzo is not your usual ham, he was trained to be a real ‘trouper’ by his now dead dad who wouldn’t have anything less than perfection from Lorenzo.

So Lorenzo might hate politics, have no respect for the policies of Bornforte and be an all-out xenophobe, yet when he begins to act like Bornforte, he becomes Bornforte. It becomes his best performance yet, and eventually he cannot distinguish his own self anymore.

The novel’s catchline says “Every stand-in dreamed of the starring role – but what actor would risk his life for the chance?”

Lorenzo risks his life and he does not lose it, but Lorenzo dies. Being Bornforte does not leave any room to be Lorenzo.

All through this book Lorenzo speaks out to you. You learn about his thoughts, motives, drives, passions, fears. It’s a most beautifully done first-person narrative, and the character is a treat. Of course Heinlein doesn’t leave politics alone either. The Martians or Venusians that humans are reluctant to award equal status to can be taken as a metaphor for a lot of things. The new District 9 is not any better at this.

Tunnel in the sky by Robert Heinlein

tunnel

I am yet to be bored by Heinlein. I read Double Star within 24 hours of acquiring it and Tunnel in the sky within 18 hours of reading Double Star.

Tunnel in the sky is about Rod Walker, a teenager in a normally defunct family (now don’t ask me what that means) who is thought of not having what it takes to make it in a world which is all about adventure and seeking a life in new challenging planets.

In a high-school survival test Rod Walker is marooned on a distant planet full of unknown dangers and threatening beasts. His aim was to survive for only a week, but when the expected recall-signal fails to arrive Rod realizes he will be there forever.

The story describes how Rod survives, and helps many others also there for the test to survive. He learns to share, lead, follow, build, destroy, challenge, fight and give up. He plays his part in building a community that’s savage in their daily-routine but humane in their hearts.

He becomes the leader of that community and witnesses marriages, deaths and births. The group learns to survive major challenges and eventually reconcile themselves to their new lives, learning how to enjoy it. That’s when the rescue party arrives. But Rod doesn’t feel he can go home any more.

Civilization isn’t built in a day, and it certainly doesn’t evolve the way shown in Tunnel in the sky, but it takes people who sacrifice an innovate. The kind of people who are in this book.

The micro-society in the book is no different than a nation. Each individual can be related to a certain force working in our own society. Reading about how they work together and against each other in the book gives you a look at how our own world gets by.

This is certainly a book worth recommending though it gets a bit repetitive in the middle. You expect more action than there is. Heinlein also lets an important thread  (of the planet’s extinct civilization) unexplored which is very disappointing for a reader like me.

I’ve already ordered 2 more books from flipkart.com and they should be arriving in 2 weeks. It’s not a short wait for a book-crazy-maniac like  me but I think I ought to wait cause it certainly isn’t a good idea to spend all my money in a go buying all the books at once. Let me go broke one book at a time.

Meanwhile I’ve also read bits from The Clash of Civilizations And Remaking of The World Order by Samuel Harrington but I think The Lexus and the Olive Tree was a better book on the same topic. I ought to find it and finish it.

Airtel’s Unlimited Internet Plan is a LIE!

September 26th, 2009

When you get an unlimited internet connection from Airtel don’t forget to read the fine print. The plan is not actually unlimited the way you expect it to.

Airtel has introduced a ‘Fair Usage Policy’ which is very unfair to its customers. Under this policy a buyer who’s got a 1 MBPS connection (paying Rs. 1699 for it every month) is only allowed to use up to 20 GBs in a month. If the usage goes above it the buyer’s Internet speed is degraded to 512 KBPS. On the 2 MBPS connection too the limit is the same 20 GBs.

20 GBs? Ridiculous! Someone with a 2 MBPS connection can download 20 GBs in 3 days. They have the audacity to call it ‘Fair Use’!

Fair use for who? For Airtel who doesn’t care a fig for its customers anymore in a bid to maximize their profits?

Well, it’s not going to work for long. The first chance I get I am going to migrate to an Internet connection that is not so limiting.

Another company Tata Indicom has caught up on the fair use nonsense too. They told me that the fair use for the Internet connection was 20 GBs, when I asked them what would they do after I crossed 20 GBs they were unclear. ‘Send you a SMS’. Umm.. How’s that making sense? Every time you send me a SMS I get a shooting pain through my leg? Or you want to remind me of bad Karma that I am doing, crossing your fair use limits?

Well, it’s moronic policies like these which introduce fresh competition into the market.

So I am looking for an ISP with an ounce of sense.

Have Spacesuit Will Travel By R A Heinlein : Feedback on Book

September 25th, 2009

3456-1What would you do if you won a spacesuit in a contest? Wear it in your backyard of course, and then be kidnapped by an alien spacecraft and visit the Moon, Pluto another star and then another galaxy. Sounds like some adventure eh? And what if you could come back from all that in a few weeks time. That’s what Russ does in Heinlein’s epic tale that spans distances that the human mind will break down before imagining.

This is the kind of work that books like Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy are inspired from. Of course HGTTG is much more awesome. After all, Arther Dent just needed his bath-towel robe and multiple strokes of luck to save the galaxy, while it took Russ a spacesuit, a near genius IQ and an ultra-sharp survival instinct to fight off the aliens.

This book strongly reminded me of Douglas Adams’ HGTTG (which was written much later incidentally, and on a bigger scale). It had the same irreverent humor in tough situations. Delightful characters who were a treat to watch. Aliens that managed to be both bumbling and frightful at the same time and a journey that’s beyond anything you’d ever expect.

Heinlein set the bar when he takes you the Magellanic Cloud at the Federation of the Three Galaxies at the meeting of the Security Council which is going to judge whether to kill all humanity by putting to trial on behalf of our race: a Neanderthal man, a Roman Centurion, A high-school pass out boy, and a thirteen year old girl.

Awesome!

This could only be upped by something like The Restaurant at the End of Time.

So like I said this was a wholly enjoyable read which is evident from the fact that I got this book yesterday night and I am through with it today night between Work, food, bath and family.

This is a great book and everyone who is interested in quality space humor should own a copy.

Oh, and the next time you go out into the backyard decked in your space-suit, don’t call on Radio for an imaginary person called ‘Peewee’, no telling who might pick you up.

The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A Heinlein : Feedback on Book

September 24th, 2009

c6882Reading Heinlein’s astounding science fiction I never thought about how long ago it really was when he wrote them. Reading this book reminded me.

The first and the last manned moon mission till date was in 1969 and over 30 years later we have yet to send human beings to Moon or to any other planetary body of consequence. All the money that should have gone into space research has been eaten by weapons development program, and – television.

The book ‘The Man Who Sold The Moon’ is about one man’s dream to reach the moon and how he makes the journey possible and ultimately fulfills his dream. The story is about the last ‘robber baron’ businessman or maybe the first of the ‘new robber barons’, an individual who can do anything legal or slightly illegal as long as he achieves the end he believes in. The end justifies the means wholly in this book from Heinlein.

The Man Who Sold The Moon is set in the 1950s, the past. The cliched conscience-less businessman was as alive then as he is now. But in Heinlein’s book his purpose is higher, sort of like Arjun in the Bhagvad Geeta.

The Man who sold the Moon is actually a Novella and a short story. The central character is the same, but the stories are set decades apart. In the second story the lead character’s initial excursion to the Moon caused rapid advancements in spaceship technology and humanity fulfilled the dream of establishing a colony on Moon. It’s a dream that still eludes us, and today the number of people who believe we will make it to outer-space are lesser than what they were 50 years ago.

It’s a shame because Heinlein has a splendid vision for the future, and we find ourselves unable to live it.

Make apps for Android or iPhone

September 19th, 2009

iphone-android-ufcSmartphones are the big boom in the US and the next big boom in India. With the arrival of 3G there will be compelling reason for mobile users to upgrade to a smartphone. There is a good scope for small players to make little fortunes developing and selling smart phone applications. That’s why I have been giving them a serious look starting this year.

The most popular smartphone platform is of course iPhone, but it hasn’t been able to repeat its success story in India because it is locking its services with a single player who is marking up the price very high. That’s why the number of smartphones sold could be well under 10,000 according to one study. Until iPhone makes itself an open platform which works with its complete capabilities on all networks and is available for a price at par with international prices there will be very little desire for customers to shift to iPhone.

This of course is the most compelling reason why I won’t be developing for iPhone. The second reason is Apple’s tight regulatory policies and their desire not to let any other marketplace bloom than their own. The problem is not just that Apple arbitrarily rejects and approves applications but also that it decides whether your application gets any exposure and paying Apple a cut of your profits is vital if you’re developing any app for iPhone. That’s like paying Microsoft 30% on every software you make for Windows.

Since Apple is making so much money off iPhone already I don’t think it should lock the developers down so hard.

There are some other platforms available as an alternative to iPhone. Android is small but it has the potential to be a winner just like iPhone. Development on Android is free and you can get all the tools from the Android website.

All the development is in Java so you can potentially re-use some of your code to make apps for other smartphones like Blackberry and Nokia.

So I am going to be try to be an early entrant on Android. Maybe beginning with a port of one of my core applications.