Pastoral idealism

I started reading Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden - Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America.

I like this quote from Freund describing fantasy, and am quoting it from the book:

The creating of the mental domain of phantasy has a complete counterpart in the establishment of "reservations" and "nature-parks" in places where the inroads of agriculture, traffic, or industry threaten to change ... the earth rapidly into something unrecognizable. The "reservation" is to maintain the old condition of things which has been regretfully sacrificed to necessity everywhere else; there everything may grow and spread as it pleases, including what is useless and even what is harmful. The mental realm of phantasy is also such a reservation reclaimed from the encroaches of the reality principle.

Broken internet and The Mystic Masseur

Going back to reading books over break has been refreshing. I just finished reading Naipaul's The Mystic Masseur. I don't think I ever read a book by Naipaul before, but I have to say that I am pretty impressed. I like the imagery that permeates Naipaul's writing. The Internet in my apartment was down for the last few days, and that definitely put me in the mindset to pick up a book. I also realized that my life has been deeply interwined with the Internet; I felt something was amiss in my life, that some portion of my daily life has suddenly disappeared - an appalling dependency on technology.

The net is back, since I am writing this entry, but the irony is that I need the technology to talk about my appalling dependency on the technology.

My books wishlist

I am adding these two books to my wishlist. From what I have read in the reviews, both of these are going to be an enjoyable read.

• Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky.
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

Actually, the second one was recommended by a college friend.

Reading list... my conscience

This is for my conscience, that I am also spending valuable time in the summer looking at 'valuable' things. This list depicts some of the cs related books that I have, or been pretending, to read/skim over the summer.

• Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# by Matthew MacDonald.
• Database Management Systems by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke.
• Basics of Compiler Design by Torben Mogensen.
• The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks.

Notice that the list does not include anything related to machine learning, but, again for my conscience, there are some machine learning related stuff that I have also been paying close attention to.

Three men in a boat, a comedy of human folly

This summer, I have taken an interest in reading some classical literary work. The detective stories that I have been reading, which I have mentioned in my previous post, is a testament to this fact; though, one can argue the inclusion of such detective stories as ‘classical literary’ work, let us not delve into that matter. I recently took up a classic book titled ‘Three men in a boat,’ by Jerome K. Jerome. Through the comical nature of three, seemingly lazy, English friends as they embark on a journey by the river to relieve the stress of their overworked lives, Jerome brings out some follies of common human nature. I haven't yet finished reading the book, just over half way through, but as I come across new incidents in the lives of the three English gentlemen on their revitalizing river trip, I can't help but reflect as to how, surprisingly, the behaviors portrayed seem to reflect within the intricacies of modern life.

Three Cups of Tea - An amazing tale of a real life Indiana Jones

I finished reading this book a few days ago. I simply want to go on and talk about this book, but I am going to restrain myself and say this: this book is an amazing, epic tale of a real world person, and if you get a chance to read this book, just grab it. I can promise that it will be worth your while. Here's a link to the book.

A great book that I forgot about

I read this book over last summer, 2008, when I was doing summer research at The University of Chicago - Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam. It took me a good portion of the time I was in Chicago to read this book, mostly due to time constraint with several other activities, but it was a great read on civic engagement. The book has more of a neutral tone, but it provides a vivid picture of the transformation of civic engagement in American society over the last few decades. Just thought I should mention the book if anyone is interested in such sociological discourse.