QuGee Updates » December 3, 2008

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• December 04, 2008
• 4:58

  Book-browsing behaviour

   » ‎ talfryn.net
  
  

  When in bookstores, besides looking at books, I also look at people looking at books. It’s interesting to observe the various sorts of book-browsing behaviour. Some like to pick up a book, look at its back, put it back down. Some like to flip through the pages. Some read a book there and then, starting from the beginning, or somewhere in the middle. Some sit on the floor, a pile of books by their side. Some never seem to ever pick up a book, but merely grant their covers cursory glances. But what I notice is that people seldom flip to the first few pages of a book, where its publication details, copyright info and other boring information can be found. I suppose you’ll mainly find that type of people in the Science section.

  For me, it’s almost automatic: once I’ve checked out the book backcover (what’s it about?), I’ll sniff out the author background (what sort of exposure, biases, if any?). Then I’ll get a feel of its pages (what’s it like inside? paper texture, typefonts, font size?) and the writing style (first person? third?). For non-fiction books, I’ll also consider its year of publication (how up-to-date?), contents page (how structured and comprehensive?), and sometimes, the index. Book selection is almost a science.

• December 03, 2008
• 19:42

  Sigiriya and Minneria National Park

   » ‎ Wanderer

  Now that I spent 5 weeks with my colleagues from UK day in day out, I have come to know them quite well, and its very fun to have the opportunity to work and travel with a group of like-minded people who had just been through university and is where I am.

  Whats more? - I am working for a company which is very generous. I don’t know how the credit crunch and recession will affect everything, but right now, I cannot ask for a better graduate job. Apart from paying a 1000 pounds hotel bill, they are paying for all our general expenses. During the weekends, we take out a company car and driver who drives us to different sites in Sri Lanka.

  “There used to be a lot of Tiger here.” - That was what the safari jeep driver told us as we stopped for mosquito repellent in Dambullah. Of course we was not referring to the animal, he was talking about the Tamil Tiger. We were told that where we went was once involved in very heavy fighting with the Tamil Tiger, but now its safe. Apart from all the checkpoints and armed policemen everywhere, there are big posters of government propaganda, including many of the president shaking hands with the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There are also those of smiling gunmen with admonition and machine guns.

  The road was quite rough, and it was raining quite heavily. But we managed to see some animals roaming around. They included elephants.

  and cows…

  Definitely, it was the scenery and the surrealism that made me think about how such a beautiful country with so much natural resources come into civil unrest. Knowing that elephants are probably the animal which has the best memory, I can’t help by wonder, what they thought about us humans when the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan Army were roaming around the forest with heavy artillery - always fighting, fighting and fighting.

  The next day we went to visit a rock in Sigiriya. It was a rock where the exiled king from India built his palace. There is nothing left today except from ruins, but it is trying to become a UNESCO World Heritage. With 1000 steps to get up to the top, this was nice, but disappointing. Perhaps, I am comparing it to Uluru - which could not be compared to. I loved Uluru. But Sigiriya is different I suppose. It looked very impressive in the pictures in the Sri Lankan embassy in London. It is of great historical value to Sri Lanka. It is also the house to one of the oldest paintings in this Buddhist country.

  The view from above, I have to say was breath-taking. It almost seemed like the whole land of Sri Lanka was below us. The mountain ranges at the background, the jungle and Buddhist statues - and many steps up.

  All for this rock.

• 17:48

  FreeCell

   » ‎ Wanderer

  Lately, I have been bored at work, so I have been becoming an expert in all the games on Microsoft Windows. I am bored of Solitaire, Minesweeper and now I am working on FreeCell. The thing with Freecell is that every game is solvable. That means that there must be a logical way in approaching this game. So I wiki-ed up FreeCell, and found that 1 method of solving a game is by using something called Genetic Algorithm. So, here I am waiting for him to go on telling us about object oriented programming, playing freecell, talking to Randy about salt and sugar and reading up on Genetic Algorithm. Who said men can’t multi-task??Anyway, yes, this thing about computers solving games is very interesting. Optimisation, control theory and signal processing all put into 1. But what I find more amazing is how the human mind can solve a game. I am paying a lot of attention on the logic I use to solve this game. But for a game which does not follow much rules, its very hard to find any logic to it!