After reading Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother” last month, I decided to read the sequel named “Homeland“. It turned out to be a good idea.

For the first 3/4th of the book, what I would say is pretty much the same thing I said about the first book. In terms of the style, the sequel is even more sloppily written than the first book, if that’s possible. I would have been very happy reading far less about the burning man and other horribly stretched topics throughout the book. But the good ideas are still there.

But I feel that during the last 1/4th of the book, there’s a slight shift in the mood and the direction. It feels like the ideas are finally properly cooked! The characters actions become more realistic, actually everything becomes a lot more realistic. The points are clearly made and the conclusion has a nice balance to it.

All in all, I think that I like “Homeland” better than “Little Brother”!

A few days ago I finished re-reading Margaret Cheney’s “Tesla: Man Out of Time“. As if I hadn’t experienced enough grief reading it the first time, I had to go and do it again. Well what can I say, the book really is worth reading over and over and over again.

I’ve done my fair share of Tesla reading, biographies and research and everything I’ve been able to get my hands on. And I can say, this is definitely the best written, most informative, most comprehensive biography of him I’ve ever come across. Where other books have a general tendency of focusing mostly on certain periods or aspects of Tesla’s life, this book does a fine job bringing the pieces of the puzzle together. The book paints a much more realistic picture of Tesla’s life, who he was, and what he was like in his personal life.

This of course means that when you read about all that this world did to him, you’re going to experience an especially sharp pain in the soul.

Can somebody explain to me the connection between J. J. Abrams and the new CBS series “Intelligence“? Is there one?

I didn’t really know much about the series [and apparently neither did anyone else in my circles] until just recently when I watched a few episodes. The series is created by “Michael Seitzman”, and I can’t find any kind of connection to J. J. Abrams. However when I watch the series, I can’t help the feeling that I’m watching a J. J. Abrams series!!

The cast, which by the way is a brilliant assembly, includes actors/actresses who have a history of appearing in Abrams / Bad Robot productions. The plot is very Abrams-ish, and well.. I don’t know how else to put it but the series just has the total Abrams feeling to it! It’s just way too Abrams not to be an Abrams production! =P

So… what’s up with that? Anyone has any theories? =P

Last Sunday at “The Uncanny Book-Club” gathering, I listened to some interesting discussions regarding Cory Doctorow’s “Little Brother“, which made me curious enough to want to read the book. I loaded up the book to my Reader and was planning on having a go at it in our next reading group this coming Sunday, but I’m afraid it didn’t last that long… It’s already been “had”. I munched through most of it during my commute from Zurich to Basel and back, for recent coder event at the Magnolia office.

As usual I’m not going to give much of the book away here, but since a couple of friends are wondering if they should read the book… Here’s the super-short version of what I think.

It’s worth reading. =)

Ok well… I’m not a fan of the writing style. The author doesn’t seem to have much of that at all. This is something that I’m generally not all that sensitive about as I’m looking for the message, but it does matter. In this case the author didn’t manage to get to me with his words, and I felt that in the literary sense the book was rather sloppily written. A young adult novel does not necessarily have to carry that load of cheese, and I would certainly have been happy reading far less about LARPing.

That being said, there’s some good [and sometimes great] ideas in there. There is a message, even if it’s being delivered in not the most powerful of ways. For me personally the message hits pretty close to home, given my own past experiences. These are ideas that should be spread, taught and pondered, regardless of the author’s literary capabilities, regardless of the medium. The most important aspect of the book, to me, is the fact that it’s advertising the culture of thinking, which is rare enough nowadays [comparatively speaking].

Dripping cheese aside, I find the character development in the book rather well done. Especially in regards to Marcus, the main character, himself. The way he had to grew up… some of what he felt… well connected to reality. Although the reality version would be far more complex, but still, I feel that the author is doing a good job showing the kind of growing up one ends up having to do under such circumstances. It’s also nicely realistic, that he’s quite the non-hero. It’s not him taking care of it all and saving the day, he doesn’t even want to be the leader, but due to his way of thinking and acting he ends up on the front row anyway. That’s precisely how it usually happens, in reality, outside of Hollywood movies. 

I also find the ending quite appropriate, seeing that it’s actually not much of an ending. What you see at the end feels to me like the eye of the storm, and a good place to end the story, especially since there seems to be a sequel. It appears that the story’s main characters, while having a nice “day” at the time, are preparing to get into another, possibly much larger, round of conflict.

Anyway, wrote too much already… check it out for yourselves. 😉 I think I’m going to read “Homeland”, the sequel, next.

This evening at 17:57:07 Zurich time, the new Persian new year 2573 [1393] begins. I wish everyone who does and does not celebrate Norooz a lovely start of the spring, and a great year to come. Happy Norooz everyone. =)

[Thanks to my friend Michael for the image.]

The past few weeks was “that time of the year” in Switzerland again, time to say goodbye to winter and the Fasnacht celebrations. The Solothurn carnival is my favourite, so this year we went back there once again and came back home with hair full of confetti.

But admittedly even more interesting this year was the Liestal “Chienbäse”. Among different cultures and in different countries I’ve come across fire celebrations before… but honestly I had never seen anything of this magnitude. I still have no idea about the historical roots of this thing, and I think I need to do some digging. The best way I can describe the event is by showing the pictures.

Here is the album for Solothurn Fasnacht, and here is the album for Liestal Chienbäse.

Yesterday evening at the Transmedia Zurich event, we were introduced to 2 very interesting new location based games: “Rundercover” and “Gbanga Famiglia Rise and Fall”. Even as the so called “cell-phone boycotter”, I found both pretty cool / creative. I think this genre of game generally appeals to my need for being physically active while playing… The games are both being developed here in Switzerland, and they both have crowd funding campaigns that you can check out and then hopefully support. Here:

Rundercover website / Kickstarter

Gbanga Famiglia Rise and Fall on Indiegogo

P.S.: The mandetory back-side shot courtesy of these guys.

Last week I finished reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Fooled By Randomness“. What I would say about it is pretty much the same as what I wrote about “The Black Swan“. This is something to read for anyone who wants to know how the world works, and why we generally don’t/can’t do a good job in predicting what will or will not come next.

Though I think I’m still a bigger fan of “The Black Swan”, I really enjoyed reading this one too.

Last week I finished reading “Roadside Picnic“, the 1972 sci-fi novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky [as per suggestion of a friend]. For me, the book “felt” quite a bit  similar to  Huxley’s “Brave New World”. Dystopian society built around one major life changing element which is a source of unnatural luck for some and unfair disadvantage for many others.

I did enjoy reading the book, I really liked the central idea. But I must also say that this is generally not my cup of sci-fi. I am much more into Asimov’s style of sci-fi. When I read a science-“fiction” book, I am not really looking for a window into the future of the mess we currently have, what we are already experiencing. I’d like to look further forward, perhaps to what comes after that mess.

But if “Brave New World” or “1984” are for you, then this is totally recommended.

Last Thursday evening I attended a very interesting presentation on the pretty cool new features of the upcoming GHC 7.8. Though I’ve personally not yet had the chance to play with the new release, I’m very excited about it, since apparently many of the features that were discussed for a long while are now finally included. As it was mentioned in the meeting, it’s not that it’s not a mess anymore, it’s just that it’s much less of a mess. 😉

Here you can find a PDF copy of the presentation slides [sans code]. [The talk was hosted by the Zurich HaskellerZ group.]