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Review: Daemon by Daniel Suarez

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Daemon (Daemon, #1)Daemon by Daniel Suarez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

TLDR – Daemon starts off as a promising techno-thriller with a somewhat plausible premise but ends up being a run of the mill action roller coaster with killer robots. It’s a fun, if unsatisfying genre piece.

Daniel Suarez knows his domain – contemporary / near future technology and it’s implications. What I am also quite sure about that he has a rather pessimistic view of where things are going. Daemon starts as a crime procedural with a small town cop trying to solve two seemingly unconnected deaths that appear accidental. We quickly find out that there is a rather sinister force behind these deaths. We encounter disenchanted, anarchist-libertarian hackers, mysterious computer programmers who are not quite who they seem, and lots of sinister government types who simply know whats best for everyone.

The key character is the eponymous Daemon – a networked, non sentient computer system that is a dead computer genius’s gift to humanity. The Daemon has very specific plans (though they are never revealed – we will have to wait for the sequel) for humanity and it goes about recruiting brilliant, motivated followers through a variety of somewhat plausible means. We have entertaining descriptions of computer games and call centre software amongst other things. I really enjoyed this, the first half of the book. A particular standout was the police / FBI raid on the dead computer genius’s computerised mansion which I found most satisfyingly and gratuitously violent and explosively entertaining.

The book jumps forward a few months around the half way mark. This is where things get problematic. There are large passages that involve discussions between nameless “important” people in the FBI, CIA, NSA and other alphabet agencies as they wring their hands and try and figure out just exactly what is going on. Yes, we know government bureaucrats are clueless, thank you. The episodic, multi-character structure of the book also becomes a problem here. There are a number of characters who fade in and out. There is a particular character, a FBI special operations type fellow, who must be based on someone the author dislikes. He appears in two long passages, and appears to take a huge amount of punishment: being blown up, burnt, shot at, attacked by killer robots, being thrown off a car, etc. But it is difficult to really care too much because we don’t know anything at all about this particular, long suffering sap. The book builds up to an explosive climax involving a long car chase and,yes, more killer robots.

I enjoyed reading Daemon – just like I enjoy big budget sci-fi / action movies or playing first person shooters. There are some neat touches, cool technology, lots of explosions, and killer robots. But, in keeping with genre tropes, we also get gratuitous violence, paper thin characters, and an inconsistent plot. A strong recommendation for those who like computer games and are anarcho-techno-libertarians. An entertaining and somewhat lightweight read for the rest of us.

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The WhatsApp acquisition

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The water-cooler was abuzz this morning with news of Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, a tiny company. With the claimed 400 million users that WhatsApp brings to Facebook, the numbers involve value each user at $40. That is an astonishing amount of money for a service that is monetised through application sales, not via advertisement. There have been a number of articles and blog posts online analysing this deal. This is not one of them..

My colleagues are a quiet and taciturn lot. Office banter is limited to a “Good Morning” and a “See you later..” outside of the lunch hour. For the first time, in my admittedly short stint here, we had a bonafide conversation that was not even tangentially related to trading systems and market data feeds. We got talking about what it means to be a programmer working outside of the startup / silicon valley scene. One of my colleagues remarked that he spent half a decade in further education and a lot longer learning the ropes until he got to the point now where he is comfortable and financially secure. He wondered if that time would have been better spent writing a new chat or social network. Perhaps a new way of optimising the transmission and sharing of ribald jokes, or for improving the sexting workflow.

We carried on in a similar vein for a while when the most introverted of our lot spoke up. He said: “I was just never interested. The thought of building the next Facebook or Twitter just doesn’t excite me. It was never something that was on my radar.”

I spend way too much time on Hacker News. The Silicon Valley culture and eco-system fascinates me, but it does not inspire me. I marvel at the numbers that are thrown around. A few billion here, a few billion there, but I also wonder about the utility of it all. It is now fashionable to talk about how much of a talent drain banking has become. How so many people left promising careers in academia and engineering to cut code and make money on Wall Street and the City. In a few years I can see people talking in similar terms about Silicon Valley. “He was a promising scientist, but he joined Google to help them optimise the placement of adverts on search results.”

I find the earnest tone of discussions on Hacker News and of the job postings for these start ups deeply ironic. They talk about changing the world, wanting rockstars and working on cool new technologies. Yet, the end goal is a big payout via IPO or acquisition having built a better way of sharing food selfies. I think these headline acquisitions are a honey trap for programmers. Somebody, like my colleague, who wouldn’t really even think about working for a startup building a “trivial” app might realise that the App may be a gateway to that long dreamt of retirement on the beach.. You might get a lot more people ready to work for peanuts with the hope of striking it rich one day. Perhaps it is not a colossal waste of money after all..

Review: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

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Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering EverythingMoonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein

The tag line on the book – “The art and science of remembering everything” is misleading. There is little in the way of prescriptive material here. The book is more of a travelogue and memoir of the years that the author spent and his journey from being a journalist covering a rather nerdy subculture to becoming the somewhat unlikely Memory champion of the USA.

We join Foer as he journeys to the world memory championships and meets a variety of entertaining, eccentric and quite bizarre characters. From the ultra suave and successful memory coach Tony Buzan who runs a global memory empire and wears clothes inspired by seventeenth century sword fighters to the cane wielding English eccentric Ed Cooke who formed a secret society of memory champions whose main purpose seems drinking beer.

This is not a scientific study or a self help book. Rather it is a study of characters and of the people who spend so much time and are completely committed to a rather arcane pursuit of somewhat dubious utility. The author also goes into some detail on the techniques used by champion memorisers such as using memory palaces and associating easily remembered and recalled images to all kinds of data that needs to be memorised. The emphasis here is again on entertainment rather than instructions as we are invited to imagine Claudia Schiffer taking a luxurious bath in a giant tub of cottage cheese on the sofa of the author’s childhood home. Apparently it is easier to remember titillating images than it is to remember chaste ones (who would have thought?).

The author also takes some interesting, if anecdotal diversions into topics such as chicken sexing and an exploration of savants capable of incredible feats of memory. Foer spends time with people who can’t remember their last thought as well as those such as Kim Peek, the savant on whom Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man was based, who spends his days memorising the phone book. All of the characters are sympathetically portrayed, even those that the author is clearly ambiguous about.

The most enjoyable parts of the book are the ones where the author describes his journey towards becoming a “memory master”. The one image that I will take from this book is that of Joshua Foer sitting in the basement of his parent’s house in his underpants wearing giant industrial earmuffs and safety glasses spray painted black with tiny pinholes attempting to memorise long lists of random numbers.

Moonwalking with Einstein does come out like a mockumentary at times but it is clear that the author respects, even enjoys the company of, this strange brotherhood of unlikely athletes that he came across on his journey. I recommend this short and entertaining book to those who enjoy popular science books and as well as those who enjoy character studies and travelogues in the vein of Bill Bryson.

4 stars out of 5.

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Review: Vishnu’s Crowded Temple by Maria Misra

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Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since the Great RebellionVishnu’s Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion by Maria Misra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Vishnu’s Crowded Temple is an intriguing take on the history of modern India. As the title indicates, the book focuses on the politics of late British Raj in India and that of the independent Indian state after 1947. This is very much a political history. Ms. Misra offers much food for thought on the impact of caste, class and religion on political life in modern India.

The book is well written and the style is informal and anecdotal. The author tackles a topic that could be rather dull with panache and colour. The best sections of the book are those around the turn of the 20th century. We find befuddled victorian British administrators attempting to categorise and control the Indian electorate as well as a number of ambitious Indian politicians, including M.K. Gandhi, jostling for power and influence with nationhood and independence now a distinct possibility.

The book traces the dominant forces of modern Indian politics from the Hindu reform sects of the nineteenth century to the caste based “reservation politics” in the late twentieth. The period covered by the book encompasses rapid industrialisation, globalisation, two world wars and a tumultuous partition of the Indian subcontinent. The book focuses on political history at the expense of ignoring or skimming some important chapters in Indian history including the relationship with Pakistan and China, separatist movements in Kashmir and the north-eastern states and the impact of terrorism in more recent times. We also don’t get much insight into the everyday life of Indians with the focus on politics and economics.

This is not a good “first Indian history book”. If you are new to India, I would recommend “India: A History” by John Keay or the excellent “India after Gandhi” by Ramachandara Guha. With the great “Tamasha” that is the Indian elections coming up in 2014, Vishnu’s Crowded Temple is an excellent read for those who want to understand more about Indian politics and political attitudes.

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Review: The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

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The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun #1)The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My rating : 3.5/5

“The Shadow of the Torturer” is a difficult book to read and to review. The New Sun series of books by Gene Wolfe are often described as the best fantasy ever written. I approached “The Shadow..” expecting to be blown away, but ended up a little baffled and quite intrigued.

The book is narrated by Severian, the titular Torturer. The book is structured as Severian’s memoir written some unspecified time in the future. Severian informs us at the start of his memoirs that he has an eidetic memory. His tale is structured as a series of vividly remembered vignettes that loosely follow Severian’s journey from his time as an apprentice Torturer in the Citadel to his banishment the beginnings of his travels.

You would expect somebody with total recall to be the most objective narrator possible. Yet, following Severian’s story often leaves us perplexed. To put it briefly, things happen to Severian. He behaves like a toy that is wound up and left to rattle across the city of Nessus. He meets characters, gets into and out of difficult situations in strange places, yet emerges unscathed without much comment or reflection. This is not because of poor writing, but at this early stage in the series seems like a clear plot device. I suppose this is the beauty of the book. You know something is up, but it is not clear exactly what and why.

The descriptions of a (post apocalyptic?) Earth are very well done. The city of Nessus, where all the action takes place, is intriguing. It is somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, and its people live in a monarchial, class based, almost medieval society with some hints of far future technology. Think medieval swordsmen riding genetically modified uber-horses. The story is set in the far future, and the author often throws in passages that convey a sense of decay and melancholy. There are no “information dumps”, and the history of this society is not something that we know about. The “Urth” is as it is, and forms an intriguing background to Severian’s journey.

Since this is the first in a series of books, I will not comment much on the characters. We meet many, but we don’t get to know any of them, since they are all described to us by Severian. He may have total recall, but as the story progresses, he is quite possibly a lousy judge of character. You may find this endearing or irritating. At this stage, I am willing to give the author some leeway.

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Review: Existence by David Brin

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ExistenceExistence by David Brin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(2 and a half stars out of five)

Existence is the first book by David Brin that I have read. It is a curious blend of a novel of first contact, a tour through a near future earth, conspiracy theory and an almost seven hundred page primer on the Fermi Paradox. I came to the book with an open mind in light of the mixed reviews on Goodreads and other places. There were times while reading Existence where I felt very close to giving up. I slogged through, but it was a close run thing.

This is an idea driven as opposed to character or plot driven work of fiction. We are introduced to a number of characters, but as the book progresses, it becomes very difficult to keep track, or indeed to care much about most of the characters. In the very first chapter, we are introduced to a space “garbage collector” astronaut and his pet / helper cappuchin monkey. The astronaut character, Gerald Livingstone, stays with us till the very end, but he never really progresses much from being a simple plot device in the beginning of the book to ending up being an obvious mouth piece for the author by the end. Characters come and go, some pop up again towards the end of the book for no particular reason. Some turn up and dump huge amounts of information, and then go away. Some do so in extremely aggravating manners (including a “rastafarian” space scientist who has “aromatic smoke” coming out of his dreadlocks – really?).

So, if you are looking for plot driven science fiction, stay well away. If you are looking for characters that you can relate to, or who have a sense of humour, or who you may care about just a smidgen – this book is not for you. If, however, you love hard science fiction and have spent any time at all trying to figure out “Are we really alone out here?”, you are in for a treat.

The book starts with our space garbage collecting astronaut hero and his pet monkey picking out an alient artifact from Earth orbit. The first half of the book deals with the fallout. The book alternates between plot driven, character POV chapters, and, for want of a better description, information dumps – wrapped as excerpts from real and future fiction. Some of these chapters do feature our aromatic smoke spewing “rastafarian” as a talking head. With the author we get to explore various theories on the Fermi paradox (why has no-one said “hello” yet?), as well as the traps and pitfalls that may face an civilisation like ours as it reaches for the stars. Some of these segments are enlightening, some are entertaining and a few are rather dull.

Existence also gives us tentalising glimpes of near future with climate change, societal strife, and interesting political issues. To the book’s detriment, most end up being undeveloped plot dead ends. We also get to meet a number of aliens, but most are disappointingly human, yet quite devoid of humour. There is an entire subplot involving super-intelligent Dolphins which also peters out. We have re-incarnated Neanderthals, AI “citizens”, smart-mobs, and a number of other plot points that come and go without really moving the plot forward or adding anything to the overall narrative of the book.

Mr. Brin is clearly a man of ideas, his book positively overflows with them! I just wish he had sacrificed a few of these ideas and focused more on a coherent plot. This is an engaging read for those who enjoy hard science fiction and books on first contact.

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Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

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Snow CrashSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 Stars

Snow Crash is the book that made Neal Stephenson a sci-fi superstar. I have read and enjoyed most of Neal Stephenson’s work and was looking forward to reading what is widely acknowledged as a Science Fiction classic.

You are transplanted to the not so far future, riding shotgun beside Hiro Protagonist – master hacker, concert promoter, freelance spy, and the greatest sword fighter in the world; currently employed as a pizza delivery driver. He is joined in the first chapter by Ms. YT (Yours Truly) – the precocious 15 year old skateboarder, escape artist and all around badass. We also find Raven, a giant Aleutian, with a vendetta against the United States, and a tactical nuclear device in the sidecar of his Harley Davidson. When a man has “Poor Impulse Control” tattooed across his forehead, you know that his appearance is not going to be good news.

In Snow Crash, the government has shrunk and the US is split into a number of corporation controlled “burbclaves”. Policing, infrastructure, intelligence gathering, and even religion have been outsourced to competing corporations. The world is lit by the ambient glow of advertising billboards, some of them advertising the Mafia’s guaranteed thirty minute pizza delivery. Yes, the Mafia is in the pizza delivery business (and is Hiro’s employer), and is run just like a corporation, with three ring binders filled with detailed descriptions on how each franchise should be run.

The dystopian near future USA is still a magnet for refugees from the third world. We find a huge flotilla called the Raft moving across the Pacific ocean and ready to disgorge hundreds of thousands of refugees onto the West coast. Against this backdrop, we find dead hackers and a mysterious virus that can jump from computer to human. After losing a friend, Hiro tries to get to the bottom of the mystery and with YT’s help, uncovers a nefarious plot by a powerful billionaire to take control of society. Hiro and YT encounter hackers speaking in tongues, Vietnam veterans with cybernetic enhancements, and adorable cyborg dogs.

Mr. Stephenson, however, also spends an inordinate amount of time talking about Sumerian and Hebrew myths, and trying to convince us that all of this has happened before. We get chapters which read like excerpts from an Encyclopedia or quoted verbatim from an academic paper. We know that Mr. Stephenson can write snappy, kinetic prose. So it is jarring to move from high speed skateboard chase sequences and fantastic sword fights to ten pages of description of the Sumerian political system and language. It is interesting, but feels out of place given the otherwise dynamic nature of the book.

Despite its flaws Snow Crash is a wonderful work of speculative fiction, and fully deserves its “Classic” status. It is engaging and thought provoking. The central premise of the book is that ideas are viruses and can be communicated. This is a clear allusion to advertising and how ubiquitous it is and the power it exerts. In a world that is dominated by corporations and capitalism, the corporation that has the most number of clients (voluntary or otherwise) is the most powerful. This is powerful stuff.

Like the best satire, it is a scathing critique of where our society was headed. I recommend it whole heartedly to any science fiction fan. It has all the meaty science, action and friendly cybernetic canines you could wish for.

April 2013.

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Review: Great North Road by Peter Hamilton

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Great North RoadGreat North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars
Great North Road is a rather long, but very enjoyable book. The book is set in the twenty second century. There are two main plot strands. The first is a murder investigation set in the English (or GE – Grand European) city of Newcastle, and the second plot strand takes place on an alien planet, one of many human colonies linked by the worm holes (very similar to those described in the Peter Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga).

Like many other reviewers, I found the murder investigation set in Newcastle to be slow going. There are passages where the author explores how a crime could be committed in a future with ubiquitous surveillance that I found very enjoyable.

The second plot strand that is set on the planet of St. Libra would be comfortable territory most fans of “big picture” science fiction. We find fascinating landscapes, alien biology and riveting suspense. The world of St. Libra makes for an excellent setting for some great action scenes.

Fans of Peter Hamilton”s previous work will find much that is familiar and enjoyable in Great North Road. At about a thousand pages (or two weeks of reading on my trusty kindle), there were parts of the book that I skimmed. The book starts off quite slow and the plot only starts to move along in the final third of the book. Impatient readers proceed with caution!

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Review: A.I. Apocalypse by William Hertling

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A.I. ApocalypseA.I. Apocalypse by William Hertling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A.I. Apocalypse is Mr. Hertling’s second book and a direct sequel to “Avogadro Corp”.

The plot starts when a Leon, a gifted teenager, inadvertently unleashes a virus that spawns an entire civilisation of A.I.s. We are re-acquainted with Mike Williams and the (now rather cute, loveable and just a little creepy) ELOPe from “Avogadro Corp”.

I quite enjoyed the first half of the book where the author describes how the A.I.s evolve, how their civilisation was organised and the fallout of all this happening. The second half describes the interaction between the human and A.I. civilisations with ELOPe acting as an intermediary.

The story has some interesting ideas – the military using massively multiplayer games to recruit soldiers, the idea of trade replacing competition as the central organising principle of the A.I. civlisation, and the use of evolutionary algorithms.

As in Avogadro Corp, the writing in A.I. Apocalypse is uneven. Instead of conversing, the characters seem to be quoting from wikipedia. I also found it hard to empathise with most of the main characters.

I am interested in A.I., neural networks and machine learning, so this did not bother me, but avoid this book if you are looking for sparkling dialogue. Mr. Hertling does throw in some bits which made me laugh out loud. In one scene, an A.I. states “All your bases belong to us”. I guess Mr. Hertling knows his target audience.

I would give the book 3.5 stars.

Related review: Avogadro Corp By William Hertling.

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Working Effectively In Multi-Cultural Teams: Email and Teleconferences

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I was born in India but moved to The Netherlands to finish high school. I went to University in England and have worked in London and Tokyo since then. I have spent probably more time than most in a state of cultural confusion. Since starting my career, I have worked with teams in India, The USA, England and now in Tokyo.

I have noticed over and over again that communication can fall apart at the boundaries of different cultures. A team that is very productive locally may not scale across different regions and cultures.

In 2010, I was transferred to Tokyo from the London. When I first moved to Tokyo, I assumed my role would be strictly technical. I did not expect my work to be much different to what I did in London. I was wrong. Over the last couple of years, my role has turned into that of a translator, a mediator and a cultural interpreter (for want of a better word).

I want to share some of the things I have learnt in my time here. This entry focuses on Email and Teleconferences.

Email

Our world runs on email. From scheduling meetings, to status updates or to “sharing information”. Email is easy to use and easier to abuse. Poorly written emails can result in anxiety, confusion and misunderstanding.

When writing an email most people err on the side of verbosity. My Japanese colleagues often are perplexed when faced with an email that is a large block of unformatted text. I believe there is the strong correlation between the length of an email and the likelihood that people will read and respond to it.

There are ways to make email more effective:

  • Structure the email for clarity. Use paragraphs, bullet points and clear section headers to make the email look less dense
  • Focus on the intended recipients and those who need to take action based on the contents of your email
  • Do not use a single email to cover multiple topics. Send an email per topic and only send the email to the relevant people
  • Address recipients (people or teams) directly in the email. It is much more effective to say: “Hi Alice, Bob, Charlie” or “Hi Source Control Team” instead of starting the email with a “Hi all”

Finally, if you find yourself writing a long email it may be easier just to put the contents of your email in an appropriately formatted document and send the document. If action is required, arrange a meeting or a teleconference to go through the document with your colleagues.

It is much easier to ignore a long email than to ignore a meeting. Sending the document as part of the agenda of the meeting will ensure that your colleagues will have the document in front of them while you talk them through it.

Teleconferences

I do not know of a single person who enjoys teleconferences. They can be boring and can be a most effective time and productivity disposal system. Things become more complicated when not everyone can speak English (or the dominant / common language of your workplace).

I try and avoid teleconferences as much as possible, but there are ways to make them work:

  • Have a clear agenda, focused and realistic agenda. Having an unfocused agenda is the death knell for productivity! Enforcing a strict time limit to the meeting will also help focus minds on the agenda.
  • Send any materials, documents, diagrams ahead of the meeting. If possible, attach them to the meeting invite. It gives time to invitees to read and prepare any questions ahead of the meeting.
  • Do not read through documents or presentation in the meeting. Use the meeting to discuss the material, not to read it out loud.
  • Prepare actionable items for those people who you have invited to the meeting. If you cannot think of one, the person should be strictly an “optional attendee”.
  • Avoid slang, cultural references, and inside jokes. It can be very disconcerting for a team member not to know what everybody else is laughing about. Stick to the agenda, and use basic and direct language.

I have found that having a video meeting can be more effective than having a teleconference. It makes it difficult for the attendees to tune out the teleconference and check their email. As the facilitator, you get immediate feedback if your message is getting through.

Finally, treat meetings or teleconferences as matters of last resort. They are expensive and are an inconvenience especially if your team works in different timezones.