I bought it. I read it.

The subtitle playing on Bryson’s most well-known book: A short history of nearly everything. In a way it also reads like a distant cousin of that enjoyable publication. It is an explosion of fun facts, information, and even statistics as Bryson jumps from subject to subject. Reading At home is like a warm up at jeopardy boot camp!

As we learn from the main title however, this time it is about our homes, and not the natural history of the world. Something that may seem like a much smaller, and maybe not such an interesting undertaking. Of course Bill Bryson proves this wrong. Using his own home, an old rectory in the English country side, he ventures from room to room and provide an amazing amount of facts regarding construction, technologies, and activities even remotely associated with every space. From waste, plumbing, and toilets in the bathroom, to pregnancy, gardening, and telephones elsewhere; then even injury statistics associated with the staircase. I am amazed.

In fact I think that the scope proved so amazingly huge that Bryson had to limit himself. Although the book is almost 500 pages is stays in the western world geographically. In the U.K. to be specific (with some interesting excursions to America). Time-wise it is centered around the Victorian era, again with the odd excursion to historic times.

All of that is of course fine; the time and place is set around the industrial revolution when much happened that define what we today call a home. Also, given that the authors own house is used as a model it is appropriate. Still, I guess homes might vary in different cultures. Ancient Greek houses. Japanese gardens. Imagine having also their history presented! On the other hand, then we would probably be looking at a three-volume publication. At lest. So I understand Bryson.

My only real critique is that, to my surprise, I had the impression that the first few chapters were a bit sloppy edited. No real examples, just a feeling. Something that surprised me to some extent given the author. (On the other hand who am I to criticize? I still shudder when I re-read some of the posts I made on this web page.)

However this feeling disappeared quickly and I was thrilled by the amount of facts presented. This is really the lasting enjoyment of reading At home. It is quick and fun. I can not think of a better way of gaining general knowledge than reading Bill Bryson; the man is brilliant.

Actually, while reading it struck me that this book would be the perfect companion to role playing geeks. I am not as much into gaming as I once was, but I remember the discussions. How would a world in a historic setting work? Bryson’s book is perfect for this! Better than any history text because it tells of everyday life and not on war! The Victorian focus is appropriate as well given today’s steam punk hysteria. Yes, I would give this to any role player.

Finally, beside the multitude of facts and character portraits, At Home leaves me with appreciation for the range of improvements to western living we have seen the last few hundred years. It is easy to think that it was better before, but one marvels at how much of today’s comfort that is actually the result of just 200 years of development.

We know that western living is not sustainable, however comfortable. At Home then show that we can not really go back to a world with 18th century technology either. It would be a very demanding place to live. Filled with death, illness, and filth. In fact many on earth are still forced to live like that today. Left is the question of how to use the knowledge we have gained to change our homes so that everyone can be comfortable and safe. It may be very unlike the places westerners have grown used to, but it can still be home.

.L

In any case, I repeat myself from earlier posts on his books. The newest Vlad Taltos book, Iorich, has been out for a while now, and I have been eyeing it intensely on every visit to the bookshop or the library (if eyes could drool then mine would). A Brust book is nothing I just can go and pick up however. It will inevitably devour a time-chunk of my life in which every other action (often including food and sleep) is put off until the last page is turned. It is dangerous; it is not something that can be done while trying to fit into normal society.

I could restrain myself however, because I knew that I had a golden opportunity to read it coming up: a ten-hour flight from Vancouver to London. Perfect. I was reading the first paragraph a fraction of a second after fastening my seatbelt and did not even notice the take off.

I will only briefly tell you what the book actually is about. It is fiction after all, and Iorchi is part of a series; there is just so much I can say without giving things away. In any case Iorich is interesting because it isn’t only the latest book in the publication order but also the latest book in the Vlad-timeline as far as I can tell. We find out what happens when he decide to return to Adrilankha once more.

Vlad is still on the run, and does not really feel like returning to the capital of Dragaera. He decides to do so in any case when he hears that his friend Aliera has been imprisoned and accused of treason. Well back it is time for him to figure out what is going on and why? This book ties into some of the politics of the Dragaeran empire and to the legal system. The latter allows Brust to investigate and play on the role of the law in society and of those who work with it.

The form of the book is quite standard for the series: we follow Taltos as he tries to figure out what is going on, and how to do something about it. A nice twist however is that he get to know ‘why’ quite early in the story, but then has to find a solution.

On the side of the main story we are also updated on the lives of some of the recurring cast of the story, and of course given a few more elusive hints on the bigger picture and how the world works. (I think that is why I am hooked on this series. The small hints that says that Brust knows something I do not, and that there a riddle for me to solve!)

All in all, another nice piece of the Taltos puzzle. As for my flight reading: I interrupted it briefly for dinner but otherwise read the book in one session. Afterwards I was bored by everything around me for the remaining 4-5 hours of flight – nothing on the flight entertainment could match Iorich.

.L

However, it is now year 2010 and there are still no proper devices. E-ink screens the size of a pocket-book, when an all round device should have letter or A4 reading surface (for scientific texts!), and don’t get me started on Apple’s iPad. An amazing computer hardware locked down to the usefulness of a toaster.

Hard to find a device that isn’t locked down or will need to be replaced within a year or two.

Anyway, it was easier to just get the damned book. I am currently living in north America so it felt right to finally read Thoreau’s account of the years he spent at the lake Walden in Massachusetts.

The book is roughly organized as one year passing – season by season – but it is clear that the events told happened during several years. In any case the events and the brief characters introduced are chiefly used by Thoreau as a means to tell his philosophy and reasons behind leaving the civilization of his day behind and living in a cottage by the Walden pond.

Thoreau’s text is part a quest  for meaning to someone who might not have felt that he could fit in to the village life. Mostly however the author stands out has having clear ideas of how he thinks the world works, and what to do to lead a better life. Sometimes strong opinions are presented and argued for. The first chapter is on the economy of his stay, and he even provides an account on expenses and gains.

It is also easy to see that Henry David Thoreau was inspired of the scientific and intellectual values of his age. He names plants and animals with their Latin names, and many of his labours in agriculture and living is in the spirit of the scientific method. Indeed he names his whole venture as an “experiment”.

He does come across as a bit of a nerd sometimes however; having firm opinions on how things should be done, but with very little practical experience or sometimes even intuition. Thoreau does not take advice from the local farmer on using fertilizer for his crops, or how to prepare his land. He is eating the simplest of meals, and wears what seems to me as a single set of clothing. By evidence it did work out for him just fine, and he did alright in his cottage, but I get the feeling it is not always a judged rational choice, but maybe out of necessity. Sometimes he also show a lack of understanding towards those choosing not to live in the same spartan way.

I agree with Thoreau in many things. I feel sympathy for his longing away from the gossip, waste, and madness. Be it of the small village or society at large. The freedom of not owning more than actually needed, and the joy of providing for yourself.

Some other ideas feel much like a utopia in a way. Thoreau seems dependent on the same society he partially wish to be apart from. At times he seems to long for the company of others in the village and so goes there – for he lives within walking distance. He loathes the railway but at the same time one can sense the comfort and connection to civilization he attains by having it close.

Thus, I ask myself if Thoreau would be free if there was nothing to be free from? I think in theory that is the ultimate goal, but could it happen? Could Thoreau have done without his society if all others where living like him as well? There lies an enigma: can personal freedom be achieved for every person? Or does the freedom of one decrease as it is attained by another? That does not mean that the sense of freedom and independence should be ignored. On the contrary they should be strived for.

This book is a classic in many ways, most importantly because I think its values might be more timely today than even in Thoreau’s own time. When I read it I thought I could see the traces of its influence in much of today’s society, but warped.  Surprisingly, Walden’s most attainable measures of freedom; simplicity and minimalism, seems to have been lost in our world of owning and throwing away.  If you have the time why don’t you give it a try? It is even free at Project Gutenberg.

.L

Bicycle Diaries is a mix between a diary and the associations and musings of a superhumanly clear and structured mind propelled through the cities of the world on two wheels. I enjoyed reading it very much. In addition to the text there are also a few black and white photos to illustrate the essays. These are in some cases taken by David Byrne himself while biking around the cities and fit well into the narrative.

The main chapters are named after cities: Berlin, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Manila, et c. Each have its inspiration in David Byrne’s experience when bicycling in that specific city during a visit or while living there. The cycling is only the beginning however and the thoughts quickly branch out covering topics from art and technology to politics and philosophy. The short sections are neatly tied into experiences and sightings. The text is flowing, and pleasant to read. It is like following the musings of the author while he is bicycling the streets or visiting an exhibition.

It is easy to understand that Byrne has been biking for a long time; using a bicycle in New York city long before it became popular as of late. Indeed, he acknowledges that it probably is not safe for most people to bike there even today. He does however try to do something about it, and is also an active advocate for biking. These ideas and the push for the bicycle as a serious, indeed superior, alternative to the car in most urban areas flows through the whole book.

There is no denying that the book is what might nicely be described as ‘broad’. It does indeed branch out, and the subjects range widely, only occasionally seemingly touching bicycling. In the end this is a merit however. I never found it boring and after reading a chapter or two it becomes clear that, yes, this is about cycling! Not about the physical bike, but where the act and pace of cycling fits into society, art, and life.

I got this book as a gift and read it in just a couple of weeks. To show my appreciation in return, I am still searching for something to equal Bicycle Diaries.

.L

Nerds as we were we started joking about if the code actually meant something, or if it was just filled in to make the whole thing look more cyber (as the ironic lingo went back then). Our guess was the latter one. In any case, just for fun we took a sequence of 8 bits at random and converted to base ten. It didn’t make any sense so we shifted it one bit at time and repeated until we got a value that corresponded to an alphanumeric character in the ASCII table. (Yes, we knew the table more or less by heart, as I said, we were nerds, and proud.) Then, we checked the next byte. It did actually correspond to another letter. The whole thing was a text. It said, over, and over: the medium is the message the medium is the message the medium is the message…

This was how I experienced the legacy of Marshall McLuhan for the first time. It would be some years before I learned more about his work. After the wow-factor of the discovery wore off, and we found out that the message was due to some guy called McLuhan, we went back to our calculus.

Now Douglas Coupland has published a biography of McLuhan for Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians series. I thought it was a must read when I saw it in my local book shop a couple of weeks ago so I picked it up and read it almost in one session. I currently live in the same city as Coupland, and could do with some more knowledge of other famous Canadians as well.

The book is set almost as a journey through Marshall’s life, from early childhood to death. Coupland seeks to describe the phenomenon McLuhan though life events, biology, and family. The thesis is that Marshall McLuhan was exactly the right man at the right time to channel the ideas, understand them and formulate them. If there had been no McLuhan someone else would have presented the same ideas Coupland writes – but it may have taken many years more.

Without knowing anything about the real McLuhan, I get the impression that the biography strives to be honest and balanced. It presents McLuhan as a human being. Maybe wired in his own special way; but a person with both faults and virtues. The book strives to not only explain Marshall’s genius and motivations but also his ideas, and in true Douglas Coupland fashion this is not only achieved trough what can be called the semantics, but also using form and syntax.

While Coupland deserves credit for the text, Penguin deserves similar praise for the design, typesetting, and form of the hardback edition I bought (yes, I know, hardback from Penguin…). It is simply beautiful, and very pleasant to handle and read. From the type up to form and paper.

On the negative side I feel the book might be somewhat too shallow, a bit too short. More could have been said about Marshall’s work and theories for instance. On the other hand, that would have made the book much more dense, and probably not so easily accessible. There are probably much more complete works on Marshall McLuhan’s teachings elsewhere, but not written in the same style.

All in all I think that Douglas Coupland make an excellent job of conveying both the character McLuhan, and the effects of his work. After reading the biography I am more convinced than ever that I should try to find some time to study the work of McLuhan, inaccessible as they may be.

Marshall McLuhan by Douglas Coupland is an entertaining, interesting and easy to read biography of a great Canadian. I felt I learned something.

.L

By the way. A short while after the ad-decoding, after another calculus assignment, the same friend borrowed me a book called Microserfs. I had never heard of the author, but I once I started, I read the book in one session.

It was loads of fun  and I learned a lot!

I tried to recycle as much used stuff as I could by scavenging the workshop-bins for used parts, or buying second-hand around Vancouver. I did end up using some new parts as well, either because I could not find a suitable used part in time, or because (for the wheels and break pads) it felt safer: the  wheels are new (the rear one I built from scratch, with new rim and spokes, but with a used hub), as are the tires, and the cranks for instance. Derailleurs, seat, frame, fork, brakes (not the pads of course), handlebars, and a lot of other parts where second-hand though. Trying to rummage around for good but used parts was really fun!

Yes, I would like to build a second bike. There is so much I learned and that I would like to improve. My first build did not turn out the most ergonomic one, though it is really fun to ride, so I want to have another go. Keeping my eyes open for a nice used frame and some funky parts. Doesn’t seem to be any rush this time.

Some picture below with details in the captions.

.L

Last week I did however play a game. I played it from start to finish in two evenings. Captivated. Not that it is that long, but it is very entertaining. It is called Digital: a love story, and is available for free under a CC license for Linux, Windows and Mac OS.

It is “set 5 minutes into the future of 1988″ and it does in some magical way capture just the feeling computer had for me back then. All of it is set on the Amie Workbench, intentionally very similar to Amiga Workbench 1.3. I saw the mouse pointer and a big wave of nostalgia swept over me. Then came the chip tune music.

Still the best thing is the simple but sweet story. It is an adventure game where you start your new Amie computer for the first time and find out that you can log into BBSes (Buletin Board Systems; Wikipedia link if you weren’t around back then). So you phone up a system (in game), and you can read messages from other users on the BBS.

I spent a few minutes in that sea of nostalgia reading the few messages I saw on the first BBS, recognizing the language and the style, wishing the world could be like that again. Replying (this is easy, just click reply. The game mechanics acts as if you wrote something fitting into the story) and poking around. Then I got some replies to my replies, and a very nice little story was unfolding.

Christine Love, who wrote Digital, has gotten the language of the posts very time-typical of computer systems of the late 80ies and early 90ies, and it does convey a feeling that I have not had in years. A memory of when computers were somehow still mysterious and exciting. When there were still things to know and figure out. Not only the text is well researched and have the right tone. Also the game itself, and how it plays fits well into the time. There are some repetitive tasks, such as typing in the phone numbers of the BBSes and logging in that logically did not have to be there, but that remind me so very much about how games and systems were back then. They must have been planned!

Well, I know I am on a nostalgia trip. But seriously, what I like the most about Digital: a love story is that even though the game is simple the story itself is captivating and shows that you do not need a lot of fancy graphics and a huge team of developers to construct possibly one of the best games of the year.

.L

I do try however, and I found that a digital version of my list of things to fix, stored up somewhere in the cloud is pretty neat.  There is a bunch of them out there of course, and I have to admit I have not even looked at most of them. I stumbled on todoist a couple of years back and has been using it since.

The key feature of this software, lacking in many other similar applets is the possibility to construct hierarchical lists. For persons like me who might write down “Build  simulation system for <something or other>”… or “Construct telescope” as a thing to do; and then realize that this is a one year project… that can be divided into a number of sub-projects, each one with a set of tasks to be accomplished… well, a hierarchy-feature is worth a lot. Very good to write down ideas and projects.

Tasks can also be colour coded, sorted, seached and, time stamped. I use some of these features. Not all.

Another nice feature is todoist-anywhere which is a javascript thingy that plugs in to the browser bookmark bar, and also integrates into gmail. Thus, there is no need to keep a todoist tab open the whole time.

All in all I am quite happy with the software. It is free of course, and rather useful. As I wrote above, I did not do any survey on todo-software, but until I discover something even better I can only recommend this one.

.L

Yesterday I finished it again. (This time in English.) Passing through London a month ago I was overjoyed to see it back in print. (I have been keeping my eye out for a copy for some years.) I can say it is still as good – no even better – as I now read it in original language.

The book is about endangered species.   In the late 1980s Douglas Adams and co-author Marc Carwardine made a handful of trips to places around the world to trying locate and report on the status of some of the most endangered and fantastic animals. From Komodo dragons to the now famous Kakapo‘s of New Zealand. They also made a series of radio shows for BBC I believe, though I have still to listen to them.

Not only the animals, but also the trips themselves are described in Adams remarkable and witty style of writing. The book manages to capture the very unique thing about each species as well as the serious danger they are in; all while being extremely funny. I find my self in fact giggling when reading it; which in some cases, like on the bus, actually may be even more alarming to other people around me than laughing out loud. Not that the book did not make me laugh mind you. There was plenty of that as well.

In fact I remember that after reading Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy – and subsequently everything else that Adams had written – my own style of writing was very much influenced by that. I wanted to try to be just as funny, finding just that special absurd and special form of humor. If I ever was on the right track I am afraid I surely have lost it in the jungle of academic manuscript writing. Maybe I should go look for it again. I will be darned  I think that academic writings could just use a little more Adams!

Anyway, the purpose of the book is clearly not only to entertain. It does point out some of the more alarming facts about the possible extinction of many unique species. The title is no joke either, when Adams and Carwardine went on their trips more than 20 years ago there were just a handful individuals of each species left. Since then at least one, the Baiji – Yangtze river dolphin, has gone extinct.

When I read the book the first time it opened my eyes  to the problems of extinction and conservation beyond pandas and blue whales. Last chance to see was well worth re-reading now 20 years later. It is still as important as ever. Although I believe the problems are more widely know now. It may be said that Last chance is not thorough in some way or other, maybe not covering all endangered species (unfortunately next to impossible). It doesn’t matter because it is so very well written. Both serious and extremely witty. A disarming, yet serious introduction to an important subject.  I can only recommend it!

I guess the reprint  due, at least partially to the 20 year anniversary of the book, but also to the new BBC television series. Here Carwardine  in the company of Stephen Fry try to find out what happened to the species in the original book. This TV series is really worth to watch as well if you have the chance. Carwardine is very knowledgeable, and Fry is as charming as always. Brilliant in fact!

But as always: read the book first!

.L

Like many other researchers I used to organize preprints and papers in a hierarchy of folders named after authors and years. Then I strived to have a global bibtex file in synch with this.  Though, I am kind of lazy (also like many others, but of this I can only speculate) and usually nothing was ever up to date. The bibtex files got old; the PDFs named with whatever name they were given from the content system where I downloaded them, and so on. It was a file structure version of my student room in Flogsta, Uppsala, back around 1995: somewhat untidy with no improvements in sight (though the flat at that time also had a sofa smelling like cat urine, and a toilet looking like it needed a shave; but I digress).  I had been toying with the idea of writing some scripts that parsed the whole directory structure and cleaned things up a bit… but well, those things take time.

I had a quick look around the web for software, and found quite a few web-based applications to organize papers and references. While many of them looked nice enough, I am not always on line with my laptop. When I am travelling I sometime find it convenient to have access to my references without the Net. I wanted a desktop application. At the same time, it needed to be able to synch with my workstation at the university where I do most of my work. I was not very optimistic about finding a software with those features ready.

Then a couple of colleagues independently tipped me off about Mendeley. I tried it, and it actually does what I want, and works quite well!

Screen shot from Mendeley Desktop 0.9.5.2; The leftmost pane contains categories; in the middle the articles in a certain category is shown; and to the right are tabs with user notes and bibliography data. Double clicking on an article will bring up a PDF viewer if a copy of the article is associated with the entry.

It knows how to parse PDF files so that it can import bibliography data directly from a paper you have on the hard drive. In my case I imported my whole directory structure, then it was only a couple of hours work to fix the few errors where it had gotten facts wrong. The software can also search for information on a title in google scholar, and other databases to find relevant bibliography data. This feature works quite well, though not perfect. Still it is a very useful feature.

PDF files can be associated with bibliography entries so that if you have a preprint of an article you can easily tag it to the entry. Though entries do not need to have a file of course, and more practically it can just contain the web address of the document.

To synchronize the data between different computers one can create an account at www.Mendeley.com, and the software will automatically upload any new bibliography information. PDF files are not synchronized by default, partially because one only have a limited space on the Mendeley servers, and also for legal reasons one can assume. In any case, the bibliography data is the important thing here. In fact, one may actually add entries and edit the bibliography data only using the web interface if one so desire. Quite useful sometimes.
Mendeley also knows how to interact with many of on line academic publishers and digital libraries, so that one can import directly from the browser. Unfortunately this functionality did not work perfectly last time I checked  but it is not a major problem for me, and there seems to be improved versions of the software released quite often.

I should also mention that Mendeley can (if ordered to) rename and arrange all PDF files on disc in a directory structure (so that you don’t have to do it yourself). It can also keep a global bibtex file up to date with all the entries. I really appreciate that this information is mirrored in the file system and not in a crazy database some where (even if Mendeley has those as well). I probably should note that one is also able to export to OpenOffice and even use it with Word. Though I do not use any of these for scientific publication (as it would drive me mad!!) so I have not tried those features.

There are many other useful features such as creating categories, and sharing bibliographies with other Mendeley users and so on. Too much to write to go in to, but I find most of them easy to access and the interface intuitive.

Using the software is free. Though I believe there is a pay-for web account with more space, but I may remember just that piece of information wrongly, as I am not using it. Though I have to say that I could imagine paying for this software, I like it that much.

Mendeley is available for Linux, MacOSX, and Windows, which is quite nice. It is not, however, Open Source. This is a bit sad, because I think that some of the early bugs still in the code would be fixed by now, more features added, and that would also make me a bit less worried about having versions that will run on my computer in the future. Still, it is important to point out that most of the important data can be automatically exported to well known formats as the software works. This makes it easy to change to another software, and the data is relatively easy to interpret, if Mendeley is discontinued or if I find something better.

Thus far however I am very pleased with Mendeley, it really fixed a potential problem for me and I do not think I will stop using it any time soon!

.L