First: July 2003. 1.8GHz Pentium 4, 256MB RAM, 40GB HDD. Assembled.
Second: Feb 2009. 1.6GHz Core i7, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD. Dell Studio 16.
Third: Dec 2011. 1.4GHz A9, 1GB RAM, 16GB Solid state drive. Samsung Galaxy Note.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
THE 'Book of Jobs'
If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying.
-Bob Dylan (Quoted by Steve Jobs)
-Bob Dylan (Quoted by Steve Jobs)
Just finished reading the most anticipated biography of the year. I had read one Jobs biography before, iCon. Curiously it was the only one Jobs wanted banned, I later came to know. To be sure, it does portray him mostly in bad light. Probably it wanted to say 'I,con' instead of 'icon'.
Expectations from this one were high, coming as it was from Walter Isaacson, and it does fulfill them. For me, it dispelled some popular misconceptions. For example, that Apple 'imported' GUI wholesale from Xerox PARC. That is not true. Apple sure got the concept, but Mac team made significant improvements of their own, like overlapping windows and window drag-and-drop. Or that Jobs stole all the credit from Jeff Raskin, the real father of Mac. No. Raskin sure was leader of the Mac project before Jobs took it over (which forced him to leave), but under Raskin Mac was an underpowered machine with minimal graphics. It was Jobs who turned it into the phenomenon that it became. But this is not to say that Jobs was a 'Mahatma' that got vilified somehow. His was a complex personality, not of the typical hero, and the book is impressively balanced in that regard.
Jobs, not the typical CEO, made many specific product improvements. I liked this part because in what I had read earlier, his criticism was acute, but his praise very vague. To be specific, original iTunes had a search interface that required specifying the search parameter (lyrics or album, say); he wanted one where you simply type in the box. Now it has become the default on non Apple products too. And he came up with the idea of iPod shuffle, getting rid of the screen altogether, because he saw that people were heavily using the shuffle functionality on the original iPod. Let me add one last example, a less well known one. The original iPhone was supposed to have a plastic screen, but Jobs thought glass was more aesthetic. So he went searching for a solution and found a company that made 'gorilla glass'. The only problem was, the company, which had pioneered the process of making it in 1960s had found no market and stopped making it. When Jobs placed a large order, the manufacturer was unsure he could do it. Jobs convinced him he can. Gorilla glass is almost a standard on today's cellphones.
The book is full of such interesting nuggets, but there is one important thing that comes through. Jobs made great products because he focused on making great products. Sometimes that meant micromanagment, hurt egos and financial overruns, but his strong will prevailed, and the results are before us. Don't miss this book. You will learn much, but it is also plain old good reading.
Expectations from this one were high, coming as it was from Walter Isaacson, and it does fulfill them. For me, it dispelled some popular misconceptions. For example, that Apple 'imported' GUI wholesale from Xerox PARC. That is not true. Apple sure got the concept, but Mac team made significant improvements of their own, like overlapping windows and window drag-and-drop. Or that Jobs stole all the credit from Jeff Raskin, the real father of Mac. No. Raskin sure was leader of the Mac project before Jobs took it over (which forced him to leave), but under Raskin Mac was an underpowered machine with minimal graphics. It was Jobs who turned it into the phenomenon that it became. But this is not to say that Jobs was a 'Mahatma' that got vilified somehow. His was a complex personality, not of the typical hero, and the book is impressively balanced in that regard.
Jobs, not the typical CEO, made many specific product improvements. I liked this part because in what I had read earlier, his criticism was acute, but his praise very vague. To be specific, original iTunes had a search interface that required specifying the search parameter (lyrics or album, say); he wanted one where you simply type in the box. Now it has become the default on non Apple products too. And he came up with the idea of iPod shuffle, getting rid of the screen altogether, because he saw that people were heavily using the shuffle functionality on the original iPod. Let me add one last example, a less well known one. The original iPhone was supposed to have a plastic screen, but Jobs thought glass was more aesthetic. So he went searching for a solution and found a company that made 'gorilla glass'. The only problem was, the company, which had pioneered the process of making it in 1960s had found no market and stopped making it. When Jobs placed a large order, the manufacturer was unsure he could do it. Jobs convinced him he can. Gorilla glass is almost a standard on today's cellphones.
The book is full of such interesting nuggets, but there is one important thing that comes through. Jobs made great products because he focused on making great products. Sometimes that meant micromanagment, hurt egos and financial overruns, but his strong will prevailed, and the results are before us. Don't miss this book. You will learn much, but it is also plain old good reading.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Probably misplaced
Jabberwocky ⊂ 'Alice in Wonderland' the movie.
Jabberwocky ⊄ 'Alice in Wonderland' the book. (The real name is 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland').
And one might as well s/Jabberwocky/Coherence/.
Not that either is bad. Read the latter recently.
Jabberwocky ⊄ 'Alice in Wonderland' the book. (The real name is 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland').
And one might as well s/Jabberwocky/Coherence/.
Not that either is bad. Read the latter recently.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Open Sources: Then and Now
Recently finished reading Open Sources 2.0. That implies there was a 1.0 version. There was and it was published in 1999, and was subtitled 'Voices from the Revolution'. Open source was new then (and on a personal level, I was in the 9th grade, and probably had never touched a computer). On a recent landmark trip I came across the second installment. It was published in 2005, and is subtitled 'The continuing evolution'. Read the second and then reread the first (it is available online). Let me add that most of what I am going to say is well captured by the subtitles.
At the time of the first book, Open source was a new invention, and despite the technical prowess demonstrated by linux, gcc and so on, not many large corporations had embraced it. Programmers wrote most (I think all) of the essays. So we have, for example, essays by Richard Stallman, Linus Torlvalds, Larry Wall and Michael Tiemann, most of them focusing on why, as per the author, open source/free software works. By the time the second installment came out, open source software had established itself as the backbone of many organizations, and it focuses more on how that came about. One persistent theme is commoditization. Open source infrastructure components like OSs, databases and web servers reduce the overall cost of a software solution for the customer, which in turn allows corporations to expand their markets. As can be guessed, most of the essays in the second book are written by business guys. We also see discussions about open source business models (e.g. Dual licensing vs traditional support models), which may sound rather dull, but is not. While the first book focused exclusively on software, in the secod book we see open source principles being applied to law (groklaw), mass collaboration (wikipedia) and even biology. The books are a treasure trove of information. But in the interests of truth let me also add that three or four essays in the second book put me to uninterruptable sleep (none in the first did).
If I had to pick a favorite, Jeremy Allison's (a lead Samba developer) essay comparing and contrasting POSIX and Win32 is unquestionably the winner for the second book. Picking a winner for the first one is not so easy, but I would say Michael Tiemann's essay about the journey of Cygnus. I learned the most from it. Also the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate in the appendix. It is a mail thread from 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum (creator of Minix and author of OS and Networking textbooks I am sure you read while in college) and Linus and others discussing minix/linux/portability/microkernels vs monolithic kernels and so on. Consider this, it was thought HURD/BSD would soon replace Linux, and SPARC will do the same to 386. How things turn out!
And here we are at the end, and I wonder, who will be the authors of the third version.
At the time of the first book, Open source was a new invention, and despite the technical prowess demonstrated by linux, gcc and so on, not many large corporations had embraced it. Programmers wrote most (I think all) of the essays. So we have, for example, essays by Richard Stallman, Linus Torlvalds, Larry Wall and Michael Tiemann, most of them focusing on why, as per the author, open source/free software works. By the time the second installment came out, open source software had established itself as the backbone of many organizations, and it focuses more on how that came about. One persistent theme is commoditization. Open source infrastructure components like OSs, databases and web servers reduce the overall cost of a software solution for the customer, which in turn allows corporations to expand their markets. As can be guessed, most of the essays in the second book are written by business guys. We also see discussions about open source business models (e.g. Dual licensing vs traditional support models), which may sound rather dull, but is not. While the first book focused exclusively on software, in the secod book we see open source principles being applied to law (groklaw), mass collaboration (wikipedia) and even biology. The books are a treasure trove of information. But in the interests of truth let me also add that three or four essays in the second book put me to uninterruptable sleep (none in the first did).
If I had to pick a favorite, Jeremy Allison's (a lead Samba developer) essay comparing and contrasting POSIX and Win32 is unquestionably the winner for the second book. Picking a winner for the first one is not so easy, but I would say Michael Tiemann's essay about the journey of Cygnus. I learned the most from it. Also the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate in the appendix. It is a mail thread from 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum (creator of Minix and author of OS and Networking textbooks I am sure you read while in college) and Linus and others discussing minix/linux/portability/microkernels vs monolithic kernels and so on. Consider this, it was thought HURD/BSD would soon replace Linux, and SPARC will do the same to 386. How things turn out!
And here we are at the end, and I wonder, who will be the authors of the third version.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Improve yourself, that is all you can do to improve the world.
I recently read the biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk. It is simple to describe who Wittgenstein was. He was to philosophy what Einstein was to Physics, at about the same time. You might have heard Talent does what it can, Genius what it must. We find the most powerful expression of that 'must' in Wittgenstein's life (another would be Ramanujan's). Consider this, he constantly contemplated suicide before Bertrand Russell convinced him that he possessed philosophical genius, and hence (to his own mind) he was worthy of living. His best known work is the Tractatus. In essence, it says the structure of a propostion is similar to the structure of the reality that it describes, that is what makes it describe that reality (of course this is an imprecise approximation, but I hope it is not entirely misleading). But in later life he became dissatisfied with it. Instead of the traditional, analytic way in which all the leading practitoners (including Russell) did philosophy, he proposed that philosophical problems arise because of our confused use of language, and a proper treatment of these problems would make philosophy itself unncessary.
There is much else remarkable about Wittgenstein's life. Having come from a very prosperous family, he abandoned all of it to live on what he himself could make. Having volunteered for service in WWI, he tried (and succeeded) in getting himself transferred to the front, reasoning that a brush with death would make him a better person. I think you see the intensity behind the opening quote now.
There are books, and then there are books that push everything else aside. This definitely belongs in the later category. But why some books have this effect and not others? I leave you with what the Tractatus has to say
Anything that can at all be said can be said clearly; whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
I recently read the biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk. It is simple to describe who Wittgenstein was. He was to philosophy what Einstein was to Physics, at about the same time. You might have heard Talent does what it can, Genius what it must. We find the most powerful expression of that 'must' in Wittgenstein's life (another would be Ramanujan's). Consider this, he constantly contemplated suicide before Bertrand Russell convinced him that he possessed philosophical genius, and hence (to his own mind) he was worthy of living. His best known work is the Tractatus. In essence, it says the structure of a propostion is similar to the structure of the reality that it describes, that is what makes it describe that reality (of course this is an imprecise approximation, but I hope it is not entirely misleading). But in later life he became dissatisfied with it. Instead of the traditional, analytic way in which all the leading practitoners (including Russell) did philosophy, he proposed that philosophical problems arise because of our confused use of language, and a proper treatment of these problems would make philosophy itself unncessary.
There is much else remarkable about Wittgenstein's life. Having come from a very prosperous family, he abandoned all of it to live on what he himself could make. Having volunteered for service in WWI, he tried (and succeeded) in getting himself transferred to the front, reasoning that a brush with death would make him a better person. I think you see the intensity behind the opening quote now.
There are books, and then there are books that push everything else aside. This definitely belongs in the later category. But why some books have this effect and not others? I leave you with what the Tractatus has to say
Anything that can at all be said can be said clearly; whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Interview with Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum
Monday, November 14, 2011
The divine invasion
Spent quite a bit of weekend reading Philip K Dick's The divine invasion. The book is clever at a lot of places, but I failed to see the overall point.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Friday, November 11, 2011
The difference -- version 2
What's the difference between man and cat?
You can man a man ($ man man) but not cat a cat ($ cat cat).
P.S. Also, as was pointed out by a colleague, you can man a cat but not cat a man.
You can man a man ($ man man) but not cat a cat ($ cat cat).
P.S. Also, as was pointed out by a colleague, you can man a cat but not cat a man.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Ye Dosti..
Ye Dosti.. Hum nahi todenge..
Todenge dum magar.. Tera saath na chhodenge..
Todenge dum magar.. Tera saath na chhodenge..
One of my closest (and longtime, we go back more than 8 years) buddies turns 20. Join me in singing 'happy birthday'..
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The master switch
Recently finished reading The master switch by Tim Wu. A tour de force history of information technologies, beginning with telephone in the 19th century, through radio, television and cable, leading up to the present Internet dominated era. We see how each technology began with a lot of promise and openness, and ended a closed, integrated industry. That may or may not happen to Internet, but as Internet has subsumed most other networks, the stakes for losing its openness (so call net neutrality) are much higher. Lucid, highly informative and thought provoking. I think a must read for 'IT people'.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Eon
[Spoilers ahead]
I recently finished reading Greg Bear's Eon. The reason I originally picked this book was it is in SF Masters series (this was before I realized not everything under SF masters is good SF, as per my definition anyway. But this one I liked). The story begins with an asteroid unexpectedly entering the solar system, the only problem is it is missing 40% of its mass. Probes are launched and investigators discover deserted, human made cities inside the asteroid. Plus the records indicate the stone, as it is subsequently named, came from the future. As the story unwinds, more mysteries reveal themselves. But let me not spell out everything, despite the spoiler alert in the beginning.
The book was published in 1985; cold war was not yet over, and a bit of pro-americanism is apparent. Russians are mostly depiected as ignorant, suspicious or quarrelsome. And the reasonable ones say things (to an american) like, 'yes you are right, but my people will not agree to that'. That will appear quaint, but probably everything had the same flavor then (and of course we have our own flavors). As is the case with most big books (this one is 502 pages), some portions will put you to sleep. I found the latter 2/5th to be much weaker than what came earlier, but good bits keep popping up to keep you going. Overall a good read.
Enjoy!
I recently finished reading Greg Bear's Eon. The reason I originally picked this book was it is in SF Masters series (this was before I realized not everything under SF masters is good SF, as per my definition anyway. But this one I liked). The story begins with an asteroid unexpectedly entering the solar system, the only problem is it is missing 40% of its mass. Probes are launched and investigators discover deserted, human made cities inside the asteroid. Plus the records indicate the stone, as it is subsequently named, came from the future. As the story unwinds, more mysteries reveal themselves. But let me not spell out everything, despite the spoiler alert in the beginning.
The book was published in 1985; cold war was not yet over, and a bit of pro-americanism is apparent. Russians are mostly depiected as ignorant, suspicious or quarrelsome. And the reasonable ones say things (to an american) like, 'yes you are right, but my people will not agree to that'. That will appear quaint, but probably everything had the same flavor then (and of course we have our own flavors). As is the case with most big books (this one is 502 pages), some portions will put you to sleep. I found the latter 2/5th to be much weaker than what came earlier, but good bits keep popping up to keep you going. Overall a good read.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Alfred Hitchcock
Last weekend I met Mr.Hitchcock (through his movies) for the first time. Ofcourse I had heard a lot about him, and remember watching a fragment of an interview on TV, but movies came over the weekend. Watched two in fact, and enjoyed both immensely. Dial M for murder is a perfect murder story; not a mystery, but more exciting than most mysteries manage. Rear Window is a different movie; whereas Dial M focuses on the story, in Rear Window we also hear (I think) some of Hitchcock's views on society as well (he also makes a cameo in it). Hitchcock was a master at saying much without words. Not to be missed.
Enjoy!!
Enjoy!!
Friday, September 30, 2011
Some code
$ echo "scale=4; $((`date +%s -d '07/20/2012'`-`date +%s`))/`echo '24.0*3600' | bc`" | bc
To tell you the number of days for the Dark Knight Rises release.
Enjoy!!
To tell you the number of days for the Dark Knight Rises release.
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Asimov says
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
[Found here]Enjoy!!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monotony
There was a young man who said, 'Damn
It appears to me I am
A being which moves
In predestined grooves
Not a bus, not a car, but a tram'
It appears to me I am
A being which moves
In predestined grooves
Not a bus, not a car, but a tram'
[Read Somewhere]
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
TFTN
He who does not foolishly affect to be above humanity's mistakes, will not be mortified when it is proved that he is but just a man.
[TFTN: Thought For The Night]
-Joseph Priestley.
[TFTN: Thought For The Night]
Monday, September 19, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
This feels great
We ACTUALLY found an instance of the Birthday paradox today. In a seminar here at the office. I'd been wanting to do it for ages.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Never never never forget
Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen!
[We must know — we will know!]
[From here: I repeat, never forget this].
[We must know — we will know!]
[From here: I repeat, never forget this].
A description of current->thoughts
The universe may
Be as old as they say
It wouldn't be missed
If it did not exist
Be as old as they say
It wouldn't be missed
If it did not exist
-Piet Hein
[We've met Piet Hein before]
Friday, September 9, 2011
God must be merciful.
For he knew that I will never take my (enormously) lazy ass to a rock concert, he sent the rock concert to me. Prasoon (who is also my colleague) and his band Ashwamedh performed at our terrace today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A big Thanks to the Ashwamedh guys.
By the way I couldn't help noticing the huge amount of electronic gear a modern band has to operate. In addition to musical talents (which I don' have) they probably also require a degree in electronics (which I have neither). I also caught some of the terminology; reverb, base and so on. Maybe I will feel less lost in 'rock-type-people' now.
Enjoy!!
By the way I couldn't help noticing the huge amount of electronic gear a modern band has to operate. In addition to musical talents (which I don' have) they probably also require a degree in electronics (which I have neither). I also caught some of the terminology; reverb, base and so on. Maybe I will feel less lost in 'rock-type-people' now.
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Aaj
Itna khatarnaak code likha..*
Itna khatarnaak code likha..
Ke reviewer ko helmet pahanana pada..
*Kisi ne, maine nai.
Itna khatarnaak code likha..
Ke reviewer ko helmet pahanana pada..
*Kisi ne, maine nai.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
An old photograph
From a time when the woods were greener and the minds were cleaner.
[Dated 19 Oct 2007 and taken on road to Mulshi. On the boulder from left: Dhaval, Tejas, DJ. Down: Galli and Yours Truly. I don't remember what we're looking at].
And yes, have a nice weekend!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Ear >> 0.5
My left ear has shifted somehow into my right ear (hence the title). As a consequnce, my right ear is more sensitive than usual, left is half dead. I am not sure how it actually came about; I am sleeping like a rabbit (see here) for a couple of days, which is more than my average, and currently I am blaming it on the heavy headedness that comes with oversleeping. Here are some funny things happening
1) My right ear being sensitive than average, I get startled every time someone pulls a chair (and let me add I am the leftmost member of my row).
1) On a table, I can only hear one side. It impacts my objectivity (hee hee).
2) When someone comes to my desk, I have to rotate my chair, and ask that someone to repeat what he/she just said.
3) When I go to somebody's desk, I spend a lot of time rotating (if I haven't computed my precise standing angle in advance).
4) I pretend understanding something when I don't. But this particular thing has nothing new in it.
5) Edison was almost deaf in one ear. He said that helped him concentrate better. I am yet to experience that.
6) I learned what is the proper name of an ENT doctor. It's otolaryngologist.
Waiting for next funny thing now :)
P.S.
No, I don't remember getting a 'kaan ke neeche'.
Enjoy!!
1) My right ear being sensitive than average, I get startled every time someone pulls a chair (and let me add I am the leftmost member of my row).
1) On a table, I can only hear one side. It impacts my objectivity (hee hee).
2) When someone comes to my desk, I have to rotate my chair, and ask that someone to repeat what he/she just said.
3) When I go to somebody's desk, I spend a lot of time rotating (if I haven't computed my precise standing angle in advance).
4) I pretend understanding something when I don't. But this particular thing has nothing new in it.
5) Edison was almost deaf in one ear. He said that helped him concentrate better. I am yet to experience that.
6) I learned what is the proper name of an ENT doctor. It's otolaryngologist.
Waiting for next funny thing now :)
P.S.
No, I don't remember getting a 'kaan ke neeche'.
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
FD5
Final Destination 5 (FD5) is a genuine feel good movie. Specifically, it is designed to make you feel clever (by comparison). It succeeds triumphantly (so much so that you might be tempted to take on quantum mechanics or something). This was my first movie in FD series (remember watching a few fragments in college), but I hear that rest of the movies in the series are also motivated by this noble purpose. Kudos.
Friday, August 12, 2011
A change
Bugged by the recent versioning issues cropping up everywhere around me, I have decided to subscribe to the school of Parmenides.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Ek Sawaal..
har malloc() aur new ke baad..
har arr[n] aur *ptr++ ke baad..
itna kya, har int i aur char c ke baad..
mann me uthata hai..
ek sawaal..
HAVE I MADE IT LARGE?
har arr[n] aur *ptr++ ke baad..
itna kya, har int i aur char c ke baad..
mann me uthata hai..
ek sawaal..
HAVE I MADE IT LARGE?
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
My status of today
Life is a collection of obsessions. I am but an iterator.
[Saving it for future reference. Currently *iter returns 'dark knight rises'].
[Saving it for future reference. Currently *iter returns 'dark knight rises'].
Monday, July 18, 2011
Carl Sagan's Gifford lectures
Recently I finished reading Varieties of scientific experience by Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan, SETI pioneer, Pulitzer prize winning science communicator and a world class scientist, of course needs no introduction. The book introduced a new face of the dynamic man; his deep, rational interest in religion and how it fits in with the new world science has revealed. The book is actually the transcript of the Gifford lectures he gave in 1985 on the topic of natural theology (the theological knowledge achieved through reason alone). He talks about how our understanding of our place in the universe has broadened over time (Aristotle through Copernicus through Hubble and so on, to which probably we should now add the many worlds of quantum mechanics), possibilities of extraterrestrial life, the importance of search for it and its implications. He argues that the fruit of this search would not only be new knowledge, but would also help us see all our fellow humans as one. He discusses the traditional arguments proposed to 'prove' the existence of god and how they fare with our current knowledge (for example, the argument from design (as it is called) says a watch implies a watchmaker and the existence of the superbly well crafted organs (like our eye) implies an intelligent designer. But Darwin taught us that unintelligent natural selection is enough). And he stresses the need to be tolerant (cold war was a big issue at the time) to make progress, or just to ensure survival of the human species. A wonderful read, filled with interesting nuggets, and more importantly, a lot of wisdom.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Surely..
I did not inherit the lecture gene from Dad.
[Had to present something to a bunch of freshers today. Too bad the thing was not technical. Hopefully they understood something. And to be honest, now that it is over, I feel a bit relieved].
[Had to present something to a bunch of freshers today. Too bad the thing was not technical. Hopefully they understood something. And to be honest, now that it is over, I feel a bit relieved].
Friday, July 1, 2011
One of the great days of science
Today. And not only due to the magnitude of the discovery, also because bitter priority disputes are the rule, and this one was a pleasant exception.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Music of the primes
Music is the pleasure the human mind feels by counting, without being aware that it is counting.
Riemann Hypothesis is one of the great unsolved problems in mathematics today. It was first proposed in 1859, and has withstood assault by some of the finest mathematicians so far (that is more than 150 years). Like Fermat's last theorem, the person to crack it will earn eternal glory. And if that is not enough, it is also one of the millennium problems, which means it carries a reward of $1,000,000 (P=NP? is also on that list by the way). And like Fermat's last theorem, there is a nice book for general audience on the topic ($DEITY be thanked).
Before going further, let me try to define what it is. It says that the zeroes (inputs for which the output is 0) of a particular function (the Riemann Zeta function, whose input and output is complex numbers) lie on a particular straight line (line parallel to y axis running through 0.5 on the x axis of the complex plane). Obvious question, why is this important? Answer to that is that a large body of mathematics has been built on it being true (an example, it would allow an exact prediction of number of primes less than a number); if it were to be false, this body will die. The problem attracted many brilliant minds (even before there were a million dollars. What mankind would do without such minds? $DEITY be thanked again). Advances have been made; it has been proved that around 40% of all zeroes lie on this 'critical line'. Computers have been used to check trillions of zeroes and they all obey the hypothesis, but numerical evidence is not enough for mathematicians. The problem lives. One of the great mathematicians of 20th century, David Hilbert was once asked if he were allowed to sleep for 500 years and then wake up, what would he do? He replied, "I'll ask if anyone has proved Riemann Hypothesis."
The major plus point of the book is that it successfully evades a general problem with popular science books, excessive dumbing down of subject matter. The treatment is logical, writing is lucid, and it is altogether hard to put down the book once you start it. The book tracks the historical development of the problem; from Gauss and Euler to today's leading mathematicians, and in the process conveys some of the appreciation for not only the problem but also for mathematics. A worthy read.
[And to my utmost delight, today I discovered this wonderful poem about RH written by Tom Apostol].
-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
Riemann Hypothesis is one of the great unsolved problems in mathematics today. It was first proposed in 1859, and has withstood assault by some of the finest mathematicians so far (that is more than 150 years). Like Fermat's last theorem, the person to crack it will earn eternal glory. And if that is not enough, it is also one of the millennium problems, which means it carries a reward of $1,000,000 (P=NP? is also on that list by the way). And like Fermat's last theorem, there is a nice book for general audience on the topic ($DEITY be thanked).
Before going further, let me try to define what it is. It says that the zeroes (inputs for which the output is 0) of a particular function (the Riemann Zeta function, whose input and output is complex numbers) lie on a particular straight line (line parallel to y axis running through 0.5 on the x axis of the complex plane). Obvious question, why is this important? Answer to that is that a large body of mathematics has been built on it being true (an example, it would allow an exact prediction of number of primes less than a number); if it were to be false, this body will die. The problem attracted many brilliant minds (even before there were a million dollars. What mankind would do without such minds? $DEITY be thanked again). Advances have been made; it has been proved that around 40% of all zeroes lie on this 'critical line'. Computers have been used to check trillions of zeroes and they all obey the hypothesis, but numerical evidence is not enough for mathematicians. The problem lives. One of the great mathematicians of 20th century, David Hilbert was once asked if he were allowed to sleep for 500 years and then wake up, what would he do? He replied, "I'll ask if anyone has proved Riemann Hypothesis."
The major plus point of the book is that it successfully evades a general problem with popular science books, excessive dumbing down of subject matter. The treatment is logical, writing is lucid, and it is altogether hard to put down the book once you start it. The book tracks the historical development of the problem; from Gauss and Euler to today's leading mathematicians, and in the process conveys some of the appreciation for not only the problem but also for mathematics. A worthy read.
[And to my utmost delight, today I discovered this wonderful poem about RH written by Tom Apostol].
Thursday, June 23, 2011
A humble question
There are popular science books for
Poincaré Conjecture
Riemann Hypothesis
Fermat's last theorem
maybe others too..
Why not P=NP?
[It's important, no doubt]
[Or is there one? let me know if you know of any]
Poincaré Conjecture
Riemann Hypothesis
Fermat's last theorem
maybe others too..
Why not P=NP?
[It's important, no doubt]
[Or is there one? let me know if you know of any]
Monday, June 13, 2011
book_reviews.tgz
Weekend was good. Was able to read to my heart's (and eyes') content. Without further ado, here is what.
Dracula: A good novel. Typically victorian, with hardly any grey shades (did I say I enjoy its kind?). But instead of writing more about how good it is, I'll mention a couple of other things I noticed along the way..
Bram Stoker (the author) graduated in pure mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. How many good novelists you know fit that criteria?
Dracula was first published in 1897. Early in the book, a character mentions using his 'kodak' to take photos of the dreaded castle. I knew the dates, but snap clicking tourists are hard to reconcile with castles, counts and horse driven carriages, and it still came as a surprise.
Hothouse: It is a science fiction novel, published by Penguin (lest you be confused). The story of earth in the far future (talk billions of years), with sun on its way to extinction, and its energy output gone through the roof. Unlike most science fiction, humanity does not occupy centre stage in this future; plants reign, animals are few and far between with their niches occupied by still more plants, and humans have returned to their ancestral home, trees. You'll meet ever stranger things along the way; plants which grow crystals to focus sunlights on their enemies; plants which drop cages onto their victims, using their dung, and later when they die, their bones to make their own compost; and mysterious entities which transplant beings in this world to other realms of existence in an attempt to control overcrowding of the planet. And if this sounds too weird, just imagine how weird you reading these words (and me writing them) would have seemed to someone in the cambrian. Seriously. Boring at places, fascinating at others, but probably not for everyone.
Enjoy!
Dracula: A good novel. Typically victorian, with hardly any grey shades (did I say I enjoy its kind?). But instead of writing more about how good it is, I'll mention a couple of other things I noticed along the way..
Bram Stoker (the author) graduated in pure mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. How many good novelists you know fit that criteria?
Dracula was first published in 1897. Early in the book, a character mentions using his 'kodak' to take photos of the dreaded castle. I knew the dates, but snap clicking tourists are hard to reconcile with castles, counts and horse driven carriages, and it still came as a surprise.
Hothouse: It is a science fiction novel, published by Penguin (lest you be confused). The story of earth in the far future (talk billions of years), with sun on its way to extinction, and its energy output gone through the roof. Unlike most science fiction, humanity does not occupy centre stage in this future; plants reign, animals are few and far between with their niches occupied by still more plants, and humans have returned to their ancestral home, trees. You'll meet ever stranger things along the way; plants which grow crystals to focus sunlights on their enemies; plants which drop cages onto their victims, using their dung, and later when they die, their bones to make their own compost; and mysterious entities which transplant beings in this world to other realms of existence in an attempt to control overcrowding of the planet. And if this sounds too weird, just imagine how weird you reading these words (and me writing them) would have seemed to someone in the cambrian. Seriously. Boring at places, fascinating at others, but probably not for everyone.
Enjoy!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Strange true story
Dictionaries are a neat idea (and not only on your shelf; in your programming language too, Thank you Python). But that's where my thoughts pretty much ended about dictionaries. Dictionaries are hardly fascinating I mean. But there is this book I recently read that forced me to change my opinion, at least for one such learned tome. I am talking about The Surgeon of Crowthorne.
You are sure to be familiar with the central character of the book, the Oxford English Dictionary, known to affectionados as OED. One sight of the immense multi-volume tome is enough to convince anybody of its learned pedigree. OED was begun because people were not very happy with dictionaries available at the time, the mid 19th century that is. Just like many open source projects begin from a developer's etch. (At this point you would be right to question your truly's mental state. Open source? Where did that come from? But please bear with me). So back to the story, a system was set up, and a new approach was decided upon. OED guys wanted to illustrate the words through published quotations; what was the first documented use of a word, how its use changed over centuries, what different senses the word could be used in and so on. And OED guys also realized that commendable as the goal was, it was too much to ask for from a single team. So they sent out a call for volunteers (just like an open source project). Volunteers were to read books, dig out illustrative quotations, and report them back. The team would also publish a list of the words it was presently looking for (much like an open bug tracker). To send a quotation, the volunteer should write the word on top left of a half sheet of paper, write the citation (book name, author, published year and so on) below it, and then follow it with the actual quotation. In case you wanted to submit more than one slip, they were to be alphabetically sorted, packaged and sent (and doesn't it sound like the coding guidelines you must comply with before your patch gets accepted?). I guess you got my point.
And there is more drama here. A volunteer turned up, a certain Dr Minor, who impressed everyone back at the headquarters with his systematic and prodigious work, over a period of more than two decades. Sir James Murray, leader of the project, casually assumed that he was 'an established medical man with a good deal of leisure'. Murray wanted to thank him personally for his work. And here comes the punch, Dr. Minor turned out to be a convicted murderer, confined for the last two decades to a lunatic asylum. The crime was committed under the effect of the psychiatric disorder from which he was suffering. And born in an era when psychiatric treatment was just beginning, he essentially remained uncured, losing his mind bit by bit; his work on OED providing a much needed link to the real world. It is hard not to be moved by this tragic story.
The writing is good and I think certified bookworms (you know if you are one) will derive a not-easy-to-explain tingling, seeing this story of words unfold (I did). Highly recommended.
You are sure to be familiar with the central character of the book, the Oxford English Dictionary, known to affectionados as OED. One sight of the immense multi-volume tome is enough to convince anybody of its learned pedigree. OED was begun because people were not very happy with dictionaries available at the time, the mid 19th century that is. Just like many open source projects begin from a developer's etch. (At this point you would be right to question your truly's mental state. Open source? Where did that come from? But please bear with me). So back to the story, a system was set up, and a new approach was decided upon. OED guys wanted to illustrate the words through published quotations; what was the first documented use of a word, how its use changed over centuries, what different senses the word could be used in and so on. And OED guys also realized that commendable as the goal was, it was too much to ask for from a single team. So they sent out a call for volunteers (just like an open source project). Volunteers were to read books, dig out illustrative quotations, and report them back. The team would also publish a list of the words it was presently looking for (much like an open bug tracker). To send a quotation, the volunteer should write the word on top left of a half sheet of paper, write the citation (book name, author, published year and so on) below it, and then follow it with the actual quotation. In case you wanted to submit more than one slip, they were to be alphabetically sorted, packaged and sent (and doesn't it sound like the coding guidelines you must comply with before your patch gets accepted?). I guess you got my point.
And there is more drama here. A volunteer turned up, a certain Dr Minor, who impressed everyone back at the headquarters with his systematic and prodigious work, over a period of more than two decades. Sir James Murray, leader of the project, casually assumed that he was 'an established medical man with a good deal of leisure'. Murray wanted to thank him personally for his work. And here comes the punch, Dr. Minor turned out to be a convicted murderer, confined for the last two decades to a lunatic asylum. The crime was committed under the effect of the psychiatric disorder from which he was suffering. And born in an era when psychiatric treatment was just beginning, he essentially remained uncured, losing his mind bit by bit; his work on OED providing a much needed link to the real world. It is hard not to be moved by this tragic story.
The writing is good and I think certified bookworms (you know if you are one) will derive a not-easy-to-explain tingling, seeing this story of words unfold (I did). Highly recommended.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Timescape
I just loved Timescape. There is a dearth of good science fiction, what bookshelf volumes say notwithstanding (who had this bright idea of cataloging science fiction and fantasy together anyway?) and it's been quite a long time since I had read good sci-fi. Timescape was a welcome break. The science is plausible, there is no mumbo-jumbo whose allure is hard to ignore even to the greats. But the thing that sets Timescape apart is that it would qualify as a good novel in its own right too. Character development is good, and realistic. The narrative keeps you glued. And it leaves deep traces, especially the part towards the end, which reminded me of story of sissyphus. A very good read. And if you actually give a damn about a science fiction, you cannot miss this one.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
ps a
The river of wisdom emrges from the mountain of pain. Life just flies away. That completes the picture.
If anything is true, it is this moment. Not past, not future. What meaning is there and what is the sum total we call life. Does it actually converge to a meaning, or the only way is to re-normalize, ignoring the infinites?
A lowerer resolution would have been better, each photon decoheres me.
It is raining.
If anything is true, it is this moment. Not past, not future. What meaning is there and what is the sum total we call life. Does it actually converge to a meaning, or the only way is to re-normalize, ignoring the infinites?
A lowerer resolution would have been better, each photon decoheres me.
It is raining.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A recent conversation
Participants:
Yours truly
A friend from another city
Venue:
Aroma's on FC road
Me: Aare, [gaali] kadhi aala tu?
Friend: Kaal...
Me: [gaali1], [gaali2], message vagaire karayachi kaahi paddhat..
Friend: Aare facebook var kevach takalay me...
Updates on Facebook? Hell, I am too old even for my own generation..
Yours truly
A friend from another city
Venue:
Aroma's on FC road
Me: Aare, [gaali] kadhi aala tu?
Friend: Kaal...
Me: [gaali1], [gaali2], message vagaire karayachi kaahi paddhat..
Friend: Aare facebook var kevach takalay me...
Updates on Facebook? Hell, I am too old even for my own generation..
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Now Playing..
Oooh.. Dilkashi ke jo rang hai, hain tere..
Ooh ooh oooh.. Dosti ke jo rang hai, hain mere..
Tanwdanwadanw.. Tanw.. Tanwdanwadanw..
Inhi rango me chhupe, saare khushi ke rang hai..
Dekho na, dekho na..
Ye gahre halke, halke gahre, zindagi ke rang hai..
La la la laaaaaa..
kuch ghadiya.. lambi khamoshi..
kuch ghadiya.. poori madhoshi..
Life is Crazy..
Ooh ooh oooh.. Dosti ke jo rang hai, hain mere..
Tanwdanwadanw.. Tanw.. Tanwdanwadanw..
Inhi rango me chhupe, saare khushi ke rang hai..
Dekho na, dekho na..
Ye gahre halke, halke gahre, zindagi ke rang hai..
La la la laaaaaa..
kuch ghadiya.. lambi khamoshi..
kuch ghadiya.. poori madhoshi..
Life is Crazy..
Have a nice weekend.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
@rooftop
Chai on a Sunday evening after a good, long nap, and followed by a stroll is one of those things that makes a Sunday, well, Sunday (and the following week bearable :) . I skipped the stroll, and went to our rooftop today. The building I live in is quite tall (eight stories) and naturally, terrace affords a good view. Once there, I located a short stump of a pillar and made myself comfortable.
The view is obstructed by a number of buildings in every direction, but mercifully a fair amount of vegetation is still seen. I located three or four kites in the sky, which rather amused me. Birds were returning to their homes, and as they were travelling at right angles to my spot, and due to the distance, the up-down motion of their wings was not visible; they appeared like a bunch of black marbles gliding across the sky. The sun was setting steadily, going behind one cloud after another in its course and illuminating their edges in ever more beautiful patterns, to reemerge a moment or two later, only bigger and redder. Now this happens every day, but it is also new every day. Did you know that the Deccan plateau (on which most of you are standing right now, just like me) was created by the volcanism ensued by the asteroid strike which also ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago? That was what came to mind when I cast my eye towards the distant mountain ranges. But forget distant things, even the road in front of the building, on which I travel every day, looked different. Maybe I never noticed the suru trees by its side before. There is a mangal karyalaya nearby, and I would not have missed the band had it been absent, but curiously, all the songs being played were at least 20 years old, say from Don or Ashi hi banwabanawi. The patch of highway had started glowing against the backdrop of the nearby hill. Sat there till the sun was invisible, strolled for a few more minutes, and came down.
The view is obstructed by a number of buildings in every direction, but mercifully a fair amount of vegetation is still seen. I located three or four kites in the sky, which rather amused me. Birds were returning to their homes, and as they were travelling at right angles to my spot, and due to the distance, the up-down motion of their wings was not visible; they appeared like a bunch of black marbles gliding across the sky. The sun was setting steadily, going behind one cloud after another in its course and illuminating their edges in ever more beautiful patterns, to reemerge a moment or two later, only bigger and redder. Now this happens every day, but it is also new every day. Did you know that the Deccan plateau (on which most of you are standing right now, just like me) was created by the volcanism ensued by the asteroid strike which also ended the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago? That was what came to mind when I cast my eye towards the distant mountain ranges. But forget distant things, even the road in front of the building, on which I travel every day, looked different. Maybe I never noticed the suru trees by its side before. There is a mangal karyalaya nearby, and I would not have missed the band had it been absent, but curiously, all the songs being played were at least 20 years old, say from Don or Ashi hi banwabanawi. The patch of highway had started glowing against the backdrop of the nearby hill. Sat there till the sun was invisible, strolled for a few more minutes, and came down.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Now Playing
Jeevan ke safar me raahi..
Milte hai bichad jane ko...
Aur de jate hai yaadein..
Tanhayee me tadpane ko...
Milte hai bichad jane ko...
Aur de jate hai yaadein..
Tanhayee me tadpane ko...
[A sad song (if you look at the lyrics) but sung in a cheerful voice. Was it this attitude towards life that Kishorda hinting at?]
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Fred Hoyle's universe
I was fortunate to get my hands on Jayant Narlikar's science fiction books as a schoolboy. Narlikar, as you might know is a cosmologist of international repute, and also a well known popularizer of science (he has won the Kalinga prize given by UNESCO for popularization of science). In preface of one of his books (Yakshanchi Denagi I think) he expounds his views about science fiction, what it should be, and how he came to it. He tells us that his idol in this field is his mentor, who is also a well known astrophysicist and science popularizer. That's how I came to know Fred Hoyle.
Fred Hoyle was one of 20th century's great astrophysicists. He is remembered today for the B2FH paper (named after the initials of its authors, Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle) which explained how heavier (than helium) elements get formed inside stars. He was also a co-founder of steady state cosmology, which was a chief rival of big bang theory in its earliest days. According to this theory, universe is expanding, and the intervening space gets continiously filled with new matter, so universe always looks the same (so called 'perfect cosmological principle'). Interestingly, it was Hoyle who gave the name 'big bang' to what was then known as 'evolutionary cosmology'. Critics later claimed this to be an attempt at ridicule, but Hoyle said he was just trying to be vivid. And the name stuck. He did for science popularization on Radio what Sagan later did on Television. But in later life, Hoyle came to champion a host of unpopular, and deemed by many to be unscientific, ideas. I will quote just one, that disease causing bacteria are being bombarded on earth from space, and these are the main source of mutations. He went as far as to claim that interstellar clouds are swarms of bacteria. He was ridiculed and criticised but he never compromised on things that he considered right.
But why this post today? Well, because I recently finished reading a biography of Hoyle (Fred Hoyle's Universe, by Jane Gregory). Good points first, the book is well researched, and quite extensive. It is light on technical points (too light I think), but that may be considered a plus by some. My main complain is that the author spends a disproportionate amount of time on the beurocratic details of things in Hoyle's life, e.g. details like the names of all the people who formed a comittee when Hoyle was leading an effort for building a large telescope. Such details might be important from a scholarly point of view, but too much of it wearied me down. Reducing this coverage might have shortened the book by 1/4th, and made it much more readable. This is the first biography of Hoyle that I read, so I am not sure if this is the best one. Hoyle's life itself remains worth knowing about at any rate.
Fred Hoyle was one of 20th century's great astrophysicists. He is remembered today for the B2FH paper (named after the initials of its authors, Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, William Fowler and Fred Hoyle) which explained how heavier (than helium) elements get formed inside stars. He was also a co-founder of steady state cosmology, which was a chief rival of big bang theory in its earliest days. According to this theory, universe is expanding, and the intervening space gets continiously filled with new matter, so universe always looks the same (so called 'perfect cosmological principle'). Interestingly, it was Hoyle who gave the name 'big bang' to what was then known as 'evolutionary cosmology'. Critics later claimed this to be an attempt at ridicule, but Hoyle said he was just trying to be vivid. And the name stuck. He did for science popularization on Radio what Sagan later did on Television. But in later life, Hoyle came to champion a host of unpopular, and deemed by many to be unscientific, ideas. I will quote just one, that disease causing bacteria are being bombarded on earth from space, and these are the main source of mutations. He went as far as to claim that interstellar clouds are swarms of bacteria. He was ridiculed and criticised but he never compromised on things that he considered right.
But why this post today? Well, because I recently finished reading a biography of Hoyle (Fred Hoyle's Universe, by Jane Gregory). Good points first, the book is well researched, and quite extensive. It is light on technical points (too light I think), but that may be considered a plus by some. My main complain is that the author spends a disproportionate amount of time on the beurocratic details of things in Hoyle's life, e.g. details like the names of all the people who formed a comittee when Hoyle was leading an effort for building a large telescope. Such details might be important from a scholarly point of view, but too much of it wearied me down. Reducing this coverage might have shortened the book by 1/4th, and made it much more readable. This is the first biography of Hoyle that I read, so I am not sure if this is the best one. Hoyle's life itself remains worth knowing about at any rate.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Meri Kahani, tags ki Jubaani..
I will keep this one short. When I added tags to my blog, I said something like 'the number of tags, number of posts in each category, and such are insights to you about yourself'. Taking that to be true, the tags that I use (and miss if any) these days will reflect the changes that have occured in the meantime. So here we go. 'WeekendPosts' and 'TVShows' are totally out of use. 'WeekendPosts' was my way of using some of the ample time available over weekends to make a record of that ample time. Not anymore. 'TVshows', I don't watch any. Not even TBBT. 'GudLink' has mostly moved to buzz, and 'Movies' to the movie blog. 'ApparentlyTechnical' has gone into shadows, but I sincerely wish it returns. 'MyOwnRantAKAPersonal' sees an occasional post here and there, and 'Books' is thriving. 'GhumnaFirna' - nil. The posts here were mostly a product of the office group, and not surprisingly, it has dispersed somewhat in this year or two. That leaves us with 'AboutBloggersAndBlogging', and I was going to put a 'nil' there too, but then I realized this post itself will come under it.
So we come to the big conclusion, 'variety' has gone down. Probably it's high time to start looking for some new tags.
So we come to the big conclusion, 'variety' has gone down. Probably it's high time to start looking for some new tags.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Your Inner Fish
I spent a sizable chunk of this weekend reading Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. I had assummed (when I bought it) to be a detailed account of the Tiktaalik story, to which I was familiar from Remarkable Creatures (a wonderful book, but to which I never got around to writing a review). Tiktaalik was a big story in 2008, whose fossils were then uncovered in Arctic. It's name literally means 'large freshwater fish', and it lived around 375 million years ago. What makes it distinct is the fact that it is major transitional form (so called missing link, which can now be considered found) between water and land dwelling animals. It shows features of both, e.g. it's a fish but with a neck, and it's fins show primitive hand like limbs. It has been described as 'the fish that could do pushups'. Neil Shubin was the leader of the team that made this discovery.
As I was saying, I was looking for a story, but the book offers more than that. It is a book about evolution without explicitly saying so. The main focus is on the unity of life, by reconnecting our bodies with our ancestors. These include fish, reptiles and even microbes. To quote an example, take the mammalian ear. One of the three bones that make the inner part is a repurposed (and reduced in size) jaw support bone found in Sharks. And the other two bones have been repurposed from the multi-boned-jaws of our reptillian ancestors (in process, giving us a jaw with a single bone). Take another example, our teeth. The machinery used to make them has been reused in making hairs and breasts. The book ranges over a wide variety of topics, including how embryos develop, when did we acquire color vision (about 55 million years ago) and why single celled creatures who had dominated the earth for billions of years started body-building (became multicellular) about a billon years ago (it was the rise in oxygen levels that allowed synthesis of large amount of colagen, the protein which holds bone tissues together), without getting dry and in a remarkably compact form. A fruitful and enjoyable read!
As I was saying, I was looking for a story, but the book offers more than that. It is a book about evolution without explicitly saying so. The main focus is on the unity of life, by reconnecting our bodies with our ancestors. These include fish, reptiles and even microbes. To quote an example, take the mammalian ear. One of the three bones that make the inner part is a repurposed (and reduced in size) jaw support bone found in Sharks. And the other two bones have been repurposed from the multi-boned-jaws of our reptillian ancestors (in process, giving us a jaw with a single bone). Take another example, our teeth. The machinery used to make them has been reused in making hairs and breasts. The book ranges over a wide variety of topics, including how embryos develop, when did we acquire color vision (about 55 million years ago) and why single celled creatures who had dominated the earth for billions of years started body-building (became multicellular) about a billon years ago (it was the rise in oxygen levels that allowed synthesis of large amount of colagen, the protein which holds bone tissues together), without getting dry and in a remarkably compact form. A fruitful and enjoyable read!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Delight
My school library had a somewhat strange policy, there were these green and gray shelves filled with books, but we were not allowed to touch them. Instead, there used to be this moderate sized pile of books on the librarian's table from which we were to select. Predictably, the pile replacement period was measured in years, so if you liked to read, you ended up reading the same book many times over. I have cherished memories from this time, Edison's biography has etched itself on my mind (coincidently, it's his birthday today. Thanks VR), similarly a book about fishes with color plates. But like every other schoolboy, adventure stories were my favorite.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was strolling through Crossword when a book caught my eye, King Solomon's Mines. The name Solomon is there in so much fiction that it was bound to seem familiar. It looked intersting and I ended up buying it. Later at home, I was browsing through it when a came across these words: 'evil witch gagool'. And then it suddenly came to me. It is the same book (well, a translation, to be precise) I had devoured in school, so much so that I can still recall phrases from it. I can still recall the sketch of the map where the action took place. Apparently the name 'gagool' had left its mark deeper than others. It was like meeting an old friend. Delight, pure and simple.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was strolling through Crossword when a book caught my eye, King Solomon's Mines. The name Solomon is there in so much fiction that it was bound to seem familiar. It looked intersting and I ended up buying it. Later at home, I was browsing through it when a came across these words: 'evil witch gagool'. And then it suddenly came to me. It is the same book (well, a translation, to be precise) I had devoured in school, so much so that I can still recall phrases from it. I can still recall the sketch of the map where the action took place. Apparently the name 'gagool' had left its mark deeper than others. It was like meeting an old friend. Delight, pure and simple.
Naturalist
A wonderful book I finished reading today, E.O.Wilson's autobiographical memoir, Naturalist. Wilson is world's leading myrmecologist (one who studies ants. You are welcome.), and a world class scientist who also has a gift for lucid prose. And you don't have to take my word for it; he has won Pulitzer, twice. The book is about his journey from a boy with a deep love for nature to a world class scientist and beyond. Wilson contributed to our understanding of many things insect, and in later years became an important conservation activist. The thing that I liked most was the simple, straightforward tone in which Wilson talks. He will say I did this, without mincing words. Excessive modesty is a burdern really. And he will say I did not see this, or felt insecure at this point, also without mincing words. Such writing touches the heart directly. His passion for his field shines throughout, and is something a young mind can learn a lot from. A genuinely good read, I think for everybody. I am glad that I joined the library where I found this book, because it is not seen in bookstores and I would certainly have missed it. Certainly worth rereading.
Enjoy!!
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
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