Been reading a lot by Devdutt Patnaik on his website that I recently discovered.

Anyway take a look and leave a comment.

His Majesty’s Dragon

Summary: Temeraire by Naomi Novik is a combination of Fantasy and Historical Fiction. The book follows Captain Laurence and Temeraire, his dragon, whose egg he captures from a French Ship. Laurence is forced to give up his Naval career and join the aviators, who have a reputation as a rough bunch, set apart from the rest of the military. The consensus from people he knows is that he has had to make a dreadful sacrifice for King and Country, but as Laurence comes to know Temeraire, he not only comes to terms with his changed circumstance, he dives in whole heartedly.

Thoughts: I enjoyed the book a lot, already ordered the Book 2 in the series(though I have gotten Mistborn Book 3, and The Alchemyst Book 2 on the To Read pile). Both Capt. Laurence and Temeraire are interesting characters. Laurence’s reactions to events that are inconceivable in the time and place are what really makes him such an admirable character. He meets a Dragon who is his instructor, he finds out women in the aviators are captains too, his reaction to a fellow captain who neglects his dragon, all of these sequences inform his character, and its a tremendous character. He is moral, but not unbending, he is a proper prig, but only till he is comfortable with someone. Temeraire the dragon on the other hand is more like our typical fantasy hero, who is uniquely gifted(at least in the western world), picks up things very quickly, asks the questions about society at large, that normally a fantasy hero asks, such as why do they fight for duty, an has mysterious powers that come into play at a very convenient time. He could easily be Belgarion, Rand al’Thor or Paul Atreides.

Another aspect of the book that really makes it compelling is the time period. The Napoleonic Wars are the perfect setting for this story. It gives us the British Army Officer with the stiff upper lip, who is in constant danger because of the tense times, but comes through in grand fashion.

One final point. This book is incredibly visual, and its tough to imagine the scale at which these dragons are imagined. Some of the lager dragons are as high as a 10 story building, and require huge crews to be able to fight. They are used as messengers, bombers, transports, fighters, or all at the same time. I really enjoyed the similarities between the way fighting and working on a dragon is similar to fighting and working on a ship. I’ve never read the Aubrey-Maturin Series(Master and Commander with Russel Crowe was based on them) but am now pretty keen to look through those.

I’m glad I did. This was one of the funniest, most poignant, stories I have read.

It’s the story of a journalist who gets what should be a dream assignment. A long profile of an encounter victim, and his life. To get started he meets with his daughter Muneeza, who was nicknamed Sancho by her father. She talks to him about her and her father’s life. I’m not going to say more because its probably best to come to the story with few expectations on where it will lead.

Its short, I finished it in 2 sittings, the first time I got about 20 minutes into it on a weeknight. And than on Sunday evening I picked it up at about 7pm and by 930 I was finished. It’s a quick read which will appeal to readers who don’t like the epic books. It is however not a simple book. The story hits on class, caste, religion, globalization, urbanization, mall culture, journalism, the media, freedom and so many other things. Abir and Muneeza are fully fleshed out three dimensional characters, there is a naturalness to their meetings that I’ve found rare. The Police Inspector is also a very interesting character, and I like how Abir comes to really understands this guy. The final important character in the book is Bombay. Amit Verma does a fantastic job of showcasing the city, both its frustrations and its promise.

I highly recommend this book.

i thoughted that he is a good persun and his name telling that he is shiney persun. All pepuls are spradening baddy things about him. No oned talkied about shakeete kapeur and guldshand geiver. Why?

I absolutely took the comment at face value but went down a little further and found another one by the same user:

how i killing you with simpule engleesh? are you goned maddy ? to killed you need guned, kniefe, hamur, stoned. howe simpule engleesh killed you?

As soon as I read this it clicked. Poes Law. Its an old internet rule that states:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.

I think we need to have a rediff commenter specific version of this law. On reading rediff comments I think we can simplify the law as well:

It is IMPOSSIBLE to recognize whether or not rediff comments are parody.

I think we should name it the Bala law in honor of Ajit Balakrishnan without whom we would not be blessed.

And for anyone who is willing to try and figure out if the above commenter is for real check out Halakus Comment Page.

David Eddings (1931-2009) is one of those authors who first got me into fantasy literature. I always thought he was underappreciated as an author. His books were light and fun, but they were a tremendous amount of fun. I have read three of his series, The Belagariad which introduced us to Garion, Polgara and Belgarath, The Mallorean which is a sequel to the series, and the Elenium which is a different trilogy. 

Before Harry Potter these books were probably the best Young Adult type books available to get kids into reading. There are so many of my nieces and nephews that I have given these books to who are now hard core readers.

Another very interesting book he wrote was The Rivan Codex. Actually I am thinking of the introduction to that book, but for anyone who wants to read about how to go about writing a Fantasy book its an invaluable tool, with excellent insights into the process.

UPDATE: Tor.com has a great tribute.

Heres a picture of what I got from them today:

Im pretty sure there is a claim for False Advertising here.

Sent from my Nokia phone

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His basic idea is that Computerization does not help fight corruption because Satyam and Price Waterhouse and all the financial behemoths who failed use computers. Of course he mixes up the fact that these are all private company and e governance is supposed to help the government reduce corruption, but lets not pick this nitwits brains apart.

Apparently he has been a lone bastion of sanity:

I had always challenged the popular contention. The New Age management gurus, whose jobs are linked to promoting the use and application of technology, would only snigger.

And in frustration he asks:

E-governance is the buzzword and how can someone dare to question the perceived role computers can play in fighting corruption.

Allow me to answer(and snigger).

1. Organised and Accessible Data

One of the basic functions of a computer is the ability to easily and almost instantaneously file, store, and retrieve data. Government Data in particular has always been hard to get access too. Even considering the current RTI Act, many requests are unfulfilled or delayed because the data is simply not available in a timely manner.  Fear that a ridiculous circular issued or order passed by a government functionary might come back to haunt them will reduce corruption.

2. Data Mining for aberrant Patterns

Though not much of this is being done today, the possibilities for the future are very interesting. Imagine a case where 10% of Sales Tax officers are allowing a few companies to underreport its sales. Over a period of time patterns are will emerge to indicate which companies and which officers are involved. If a particular company is underperforming its competitors, or if a particular officers interaction with a particular company is consistently leading to revenues not in line with other interactions that the department is seeing, a flag goes up. Its the law of large numbers.

3. Speeding up processes

I am a US citizen living in India so I visit the FRRO on a regular basis. It has been my experience over the last 25 years that most of the officers here are honest. But up until 3 years ago, going to this office was a nightmare. In 2004 or 2005 they reengineered the way things were done at the office, one big difference being having the Registrants print and fill out their forms prior to meeting the officers. Since this has been done no one there feels the need to bribe anyone. A big reason for bribery is to get your work done fast. Computerization helps in speeding things up.

4. Remove the Rent Seeking

Rent Seeking refers to the practice of allowing a particular government employee to manipulate the process of getting something done in a way that he can extract money from you. This is the typical chai-paani situation. The electric guy or telephone guy asking for something to put in the connection, or the PA who controls access to an officer, or the Octroi inspector who controls how long it takes for your goods to get through the ckeck naka. They have placed themselves as toll takers. Combined with process reengineernig computerization can dramatically reduce these bottlenecks. An example of how this can be help would be the current traffic violation system in Mumbai. Today when someone is caught for a violation she has to handover her license to the traffic cop who catches her, than go collect the license from a police station 24 hours later when she pays the fine. It was a system devised to prevent corruption as this way the cop on the street never handles money. What it has led to is a wholesale breakdown of the traffic norms in the city. No one wants to go to the cop station next day. The common refrain is “Cant we settle this here?” Instead a computerised ticketing system combined with a mail-in fine, would be far more efficient for everyone involved. Cops spend less time on resolving each violation, motorists get to go on their way with minimal disruption.

What computerization will not solve is fraud. If someone who you believe is dealing with you in good faith lies, the only way that one can catch that is by verifying everything. That is neither practical or desirable. So the Satyam scam which Mr. Sharma gleefully points at as proving the ineffectiveness of computers, could never have been stopped. The problem for people like this is they think there is a magic bullet for every problem. Computerization is a big part of trying to right the ship, but its not a magic bullet. It is a tool. And tools are used by people. You try and create tools so that they are used for their accomplished purpose, but if someone uses a screwdriver to stab someone in the brain, is that the fault of the tool or the person using it?

Sent from my Nokia phone

Posted via email from doshiamit’s posterous