My Random Rants

Finally after a lot of procrastination and some hard work the novel is done or at least the first part of it. Its about Karna in the Mahabharata. It also revolves around Kunti. From my reading experience Karna is highly readable and is short as well. (Novella length). You can read the whole book online here or if you want to get the pdf/epub for your reading devices you can get them from Leanpub Let me know what you think of Karna Part One. Two more parts are on their way.

All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites Cory Doctorow [email protected] For the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference San Diego, California 16 March 2005 -- This text is dedicated to the public domain, using a Creative Commons public domain dedication: > Copyright-Only Dedication (based on United States law) > > The person or persons who have associated their work with this > document (the "Dedicator") hereby dedicate the entire copyright > in the work of authorship identified below (the "Work") to the > public domain. > > Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at > large and to the detriment of Dedicator's heirs and successors. > Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of > relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights > under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. > Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of...

I just finished Rereading The Scar by China Mieville all over again. If anything this time I was even more entranced by the world of Bas Lag. I even looked at the Maps of Bas Lag which I never bother doing. There is so much to enjoy and relish here, the astounding world building, the depth of the characters, the way their motivations are setup, the way politics works. Bas Lag is a world filled with strange creatures pulled from various mythologies and legends. Their motivations, the way they think seem alien until they do not. Elves and Dwarves seem to be old news when you see the depth of the Races that Mieville introduces.  Perhaps the greatest thing Mieville manages to pull of is create the most plausible situations out of seemingly unconceivable beginnings. All his characters are not even humanoid, but yet you are drawn to them, their power struggles and sucked into their narrative. The impressive thing is that each race is developed with strengths and weapons that...

I have watched Moneyball and read the book by Michael Lewis a number of times and it is a grand underdog story with some great performances. What no one seems to have noticed is the way they also subverted another cliche in the underdog tale. In most movies, the big guy is the one who uses data, analysis, and cold logic to figure out what to do. The hero, the underdog typically relies on his gut, on flashes of inspiration to beat the odds and then proceeds to lay the virtues of the intangible that cannot be measured. Moneyball is the exact opposite. The Oakland As, use every conceivable statistical tool available to them, they are cold, practical and totally uninspired. They rely on cold logic. The big teams use their instincts, their gut reactions, the five tools etc etc and if they do any analysis they analyze the wrong thing. This to me is the most amazing aspect of Moneyball, that the little guy is actually more analytical,  logical than the big guns of the league.